Free World (World War II)
"Free World" is a Cold War–era term often used to describe countries that were not in the sphere of influence of, or allied with communist states, particularly the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. It is often used interchangeably with "First World".
The term usually refers to countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, and organizations such as the European Union and NATO. In addition, the "Free World" occasionally includes the Commonwealth realms, Japan, Israel, and India.
Authoritarian and dictatorial states were also included in the "Free World", provided that they were either capitalistic or anti-communist. Notable examples include Spain under Francisco Franco, apartheid-era South Africa, and Greece under the military junta of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Read more about Free World (World War II): Origins, Recent Usage, Criticism, "Leader of The Free World", In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words free, world and/or war:
“Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes be seasonably interposed.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who comes to our shores is likely to get more dinners and speeches of welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous, off-hand criticism.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)