This is a question has been bothering me as someone who’s country was colonized by the British Empire. We were taught about it in schools and how it lost power over time but never how the USA came to take its place especially over such a short compared to the British Empire.
… and massive, massive financial debt to the US. America’s assistance during the war wasn’t free, it came with repayment terms which (in the UK’s case at least) crippled economies to America’s benefit.
Yeah, the u.s. ended up with ~70% of the world’s gold reserves by 1947. In a global economy still mostly using “hard” gold/silver backed currency this was a massive advantage.