1900 to 1950 xxxix standard to improve their international trading positions Many nations were also caught in a web of debts incurred during World War I Nations and regions in eastern Europe, Africa, South and Central America, and Asia that produced primarily raw materials and agricultural goods were economically devastated when demand and prices for their goods dropped As the depression deepened, many people became profoundly disillusioned with their governments, and some turned to totalitarian dictators and international aggression to solve the problem Many nations, including the United States, only recovered full production and employment with the advent of World War II U.S culture spread after World War I, especially through radio, popular music, and motion pictures, which became a major source of entertainment for people around the world During the 1920s in New York, Paris, Cairo, and Singapore, men and women flocked to nightclubs to dance and drink cocktails Urban women from Japan and elsewhere found new freedom, cut and permed their hair, and wore short dresses, giving up more modest traditional fashions and lifestyles Profound divisions between secular and traditional religious groups also emerged For example, after the 1917 revolution in Mexico a secular constitution was implemented in this predominantly Catholic nation Similarly, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey and Reza Shah in Iran both attempted, with various degrees of success, to limit the power and influence of religious authorities in their mainly Muslim nations Secularists in Asia also questioned ancient traditions and religion A new cultural movement in China begun after World War I was inspired by Western-educated Chinese scholars Many also rejected the moral teachings of Confucius Sigmund Freud and others developed modern psychiatry Freud used psychoanalysis to probe the unconscious; he also openly discussed sexuality, a previously taboo subject in much of the world Earlier the German Friedrich Nietzsche, who died in 1900, and later Bertrand Russell in England questioned age-old beliefs regarding spirituality and the existence of God Religious leaders challenged not only the work of Freud but also Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, arguing that it countered the teachings of creation in the Bible In the famous Scopes “monkey trial” in the United States, a teacher was found guilty of teaching evolution in 1925 In India the nationalist leader Mohandas K Gandhi championed traditional Indian culture and Hinduism However, Gandhi also preached and practiced tolerance for Indian Muslim communities, whereas other nationalist leaders sought support by rejecting tolerance for dissenters or minorities In the West, Christian church leaders sought to establish more communication and cooperation among the various Christian sects, leading to the establishment of the World Council of Churches The differences and hostilities between secularism and religion would be one of the major sources of tension in the 20th century Literature, Art, and Music In literature the novels of Ernest Hemingway reflected a new wave of authors, many of whom became highly disillusioned about the human condition during the interwar years Other writers sought to maintain traditions while accepting Western ways of life and technology Léopold Senghor of Senegal, Aimé Césaire, and others wrote about négritude and the values of African traditions Rabindranath Tagore wrote poetry in his native Bengali (a language of India), for which he received a Nobel Prize in 1913, while he also sought to return Indians to traditional ways through moral education Modern art in its many variations drew on several African and Asian modes of artistic expression Impressionist artists, including Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, were heavily influenced by Japanese art and Polynesian life, respectively Pablo Picasso, along with Georges Braque, was credited with founding cubism in 1907–08 Both were influenced by African art forms such as carved wooden masks Many artists mixed traditional, indigenous motifs in their compositions In Mexico, muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco all used folk influences and Amerindian symbolism Music was similarly influenced by a wide variety of cultures The South American tango became popular around the world Western motifs influenced musicians and composers from other continents For example, the Egyptian composer Sayyed Darweesh used a variety of traditional Arab and Western