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Comment by tmp_anon_22 | Hacker News Reader

> The main reason that the United States became the dominant superpower of the early-mid 20th century and eclipsed its European peers was that many more kids in the United States had been going to high school

This glosses over two World Wars and a massive haul of natural resources and confiscated land.

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Yeah, it seems quite a bit easier to become the dominant power when most of your potential competitors have had their cities and industry flattened for half a decade.

That's the pledge and turn, the prestige is lending them the money to rebuild it.

See my citation above; the US was well ahead before WWI. And while the economic damage wrought by the wars was not inconsiderable, it simply exacerbated an existing trend.

We have the biggest contiguous piece of farmland in the world the majority of which is relatively close to a navigable river. The USA has had a fundamental geographical advantage stemming from well before WWI.

The pieces were in place long before WWI. The United States of America was never not rich.

> massive haul of natural resources and confiscated land

And the pick of scientists and engineers from most of the world (handily snuck some of them in before adding "have you been a member of the government of Nazi Germany?" to immigration forms)

And that the USA stole a TON of Nazi scientists and then brought them to the US, giving them new identities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

1600 is the official number, in practice it was a lot more and their identities were concealed.

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