In the 1920s, Great Britain experienced political upheaval resulting from the first global war, as well as social transformations resulting from industrialization. Technological innovations also significantly altered the era's cultural landscape. Both the optimism and the anxieties induced by such extreme changes were reflected in the period's art and literature.

Before World War I (1914-1918) there was great optimism in Europe about the future of parliamentary government. After the war, political attitudes were very different. After witnessing both the war's terrible death toll and the perpetual chaos in Post-war continental legislatures, Europeans were more likely to question government action and demand social justice. For Britain in particular, events early in the century underscored the government's vulnerability. The Easter Rising in Dublin (1916), the granting of Irish Independence (1921), and the shootings in India that started Mahatma Ghandi's peace movement (1919), all indicated that the British Empire was no longer...