The trouble with comparing periods of historical turmoil is “you are never stepping into the same river twice,” says University of Manitoba history professor Len Kuffert.

It’s hard to compare the modern era with the Depression, the autocratic and authoritarian dominance of the 1920s and ’30s or the Second World War because of different generational experiences, Kuffert says.

Post-Second World War, there was a general consensus in the West “about the kinds of extremes to which society should not go again,” that democracy and a respect for human rights and a measured approach to change was to the benefit of everyone’s security and prosperity, Kuffert says.