Hungary between the first and second world wars laid political claim to Transylvania.

ECONOMIST: Banned music

The Germans have become particularly adept at clearing stocks of chemical weapons left over from the first and second world wars.

ECONOMIST: Japan and China

Kevin Starr, California's leading historian, points out that the mood in the state is reminiscent of the aftermath of the first and second world wars, when government was calmly regarded as a useful problem-solver and ideology was so muted that, in 1947, Earl Warren won both the Republican and Democratic nominations for the governorship.

ECONOMIST: California��s politics

So it can mean negative because sometimes the same tribal connotation in Africa would be seen in the European context, whether in the Balkans or even in - I always remember the Hyde Park speaker who said the First and Second World Wars were nothing but the European tribes fighting each other, the German tribe against the French tribe.

NPR: Words Matter: Terms of Global Conflict Debated