| 1919 | 1927 |
| – Treaty of Versailles; Freudian psychology gains popularity; Keynes publishes The Economic Consequences of the Peace; Rutherford splits the atom; Bauhaus school founded | – Heisenberg formulates the “uncertainty principle” |
| 1920s | 1928 |
| – Existentialism, Dadaism, and surrealism gain prominence | – Kellogg-Briand Pact |
| 1922 | 1929 |
| – Eliot publishes The Waste Land; Joyce publishes Ulysses; Woolf publishes Jacob’s Room; Wittgenstein writes on logical positivism | – Faulkner publishes The Sound and the Fury |
| 1923 | 1929–1939 |
| – French and Belgian armies occupy the Ruhr | – Great Depression |
| 1924 | 1933 |
| – Dawes Plan | – The National Socialist Party takes power in Germany |
| 1925 | 1935 |
| – Berg’s opera Wozzeck first performed; Kafka publishes The Trial | – Release of Riefenstahl’s documentary film Triumph of the Will |
| 1926 | 1936 |
| – Germany joins the League of Nations | – Formation of Popular Front in France |