Background
The period preceding the depression was dominated by several major military conflicts and a period of economic expansion. In Europe, the end of the Franco-Prussian War yielded a new political order in Germany, and the £200 million reparations imposed on France led to an inflationary investment boom in Germany and central Europe. New technologies in industry such as the Bessemer converter were being rapidly applied; railroads were booming. In the United States, the end of the American Civil War and a brief post-war recession (1865–1867) gave way to such an investment boom, focused especially on railroads on public lands in the West - an expansion funded greatly by foreign investors.
Read more about this topic: Long Depression
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