Following world war i, many artists began to adopt new styles that :

a. abandoned realism in favor of conveying feelings of anxiety and instability.

b. promoted rationality and economic growth as solutions to the horrors of war.

c. portrayed veterans as war heroes who sacrifice themselves for a noble cause.

d. focused on advancing clear political goals rather than developing new visual techniques.

A. abandoned realism in favor of conveying feelings of anxiety and instability.

Rather than depicting the habitual esthetical artworks charged with beauty standards, artists from this period begin to express in works representing the struggles of the time. Some went far to represent distorted figures as the "Guernica work from Picasso best illustrates. Other charged the images with dark colors, little contrast, or just a scale of gray denoting how hopeless they felt. The instability is seen also in works of literature, full of contradictions and despair. Some of the most representative works in the visual arts come from Otto Dix, Picasso, Grosz. Most of the works from this artist in the aftermath of WW1 reflect suffering, agony and a total delusion. Many of the works now serve as a witness to the horrors of the war, that came with as a side product of "modernity". Modern times weren't that great, as artists began soon after to notice. The political protest was carried into the canvas. See some artworks I consider representative:

by 1890, the united states had by far the world's most productive economy. american industry produced twice as much as its closest competitor--britain. but the united states was not a great military or diplomatic power. its army numbered less than 30,000 troops, and its navy had only about 10,000 seamen. britain's army was five times the size of its american counterpart, and its navy was ten times bigger. the united states' military was small because the country was situated between two large oceans and was surrounded by weak or friendly nations. it faced no serious military threats and had little interest in asserting military power overseas.

well the fact it is basically a peninsula allowed trade to come from many places, thus allowing cultural diffusion to take place. india has seasonal monsoons that merchants travel back and forth from india using the monsoons wind patterns