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Title: The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century by Michael Howard, Wm Roger Louis, Michael Howard ISBN: 0-19-285370-8 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Good introduction for anyone!
Comment: I remember that history was one of my least interested and weakest subjects when I was in junior secondary school. It's not until recently that I started to realize I should know more about what's going on in the world. And I bought this book.
This 450-page book consists of 27 chapters, grouped in 5 parts, namely The Framework of the Century, The Eurocentric World 1900-1945, The Cold War 1945-1900, The Wider World, and finally Envoi.
Part 1 is an overall review of the century from different points of views, science, technology, economy, politics, culture and art. This gives you a very brief yet concise idea of what the century is like, what happened, and what were eventually the consequences.
Part 2, a very exciting part, tells about the politic and military situations in the two world wars.
Part 3 is on the post-war period after the second World War. This tells you about the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and its influences.
Part 4 is dedicated to the development of areas other than Europe and the U.S. If you are interested in the history of a specific area other than those dominant countries in the century, or if you would like to look wider than just those countries, this part surely gives you what you want.
And finally Part 5 concludes the 20th century and looks forward to the 21st century.
This book did a very good job in trying to gather different opinions. The 27 chapters were actually written by 26 leading professionals, including Nobel prize winner Steven Weinberg. As each chapter is dedicated to one particular interest, you can easily jump to where you are interested - if that's what you prefer.
In conclusion, this book is a very good choice for anyone, who want to widen their world view and know more about the 20th century, a remarkable century in human history that makes today's world the way it is.
Rating: 3
Summary: a thoroughly mixed bag
Comment: My colleagues and I selected this book for a team-taught course on the 20th Century, reasoning that multiple authors would give us multiple perspectives. Alas, it also gave us multiple standards of quality, and an overall lack of focus. The students voted with their feet and gave up on the book perhaps half way through. We stuck it out to the bitter end & concluded that the students were probably right, although there are periodic flashes on insight & interest throughout. The second time around we used Roberts' 20th Century history & both we & the students were much happier.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful, Concise, & Thematically Organized Reference Book!
Comment: I enjoyed reading this one-volume survey of the events of the 20th century, whose stated editorial objective was to provide a literate and understandable survey of the panorama of change and tumult that so characterized these last hundred years. Given these very real limitations, this essay-driven approach featuring a whole drawer full of celebrated historians is a very satisfying and entertaining way for a reader to gain an interesting, thematic, and absorbing overview of the events of our century. This is a useful reference book that provides authoritative historical sources describing the momentous events as well as significant themes of the 20th century.
It is organized both by period and by geographical areas, and commences with an excellent social, economic, and political snapshot of the world as the new century dawns. By employing a number of different essayists to describe various aspects of the unfolding drama, it provides the reader with relatively concise overviews of salient topics without having to muck about in the mind-boggling details some more expansive histories would. In essence, the text neatly describes the major events and phenomena of the century, discussing the various aspects of each, and analyzing the particulars of both social disruptions via shifts of power as well as the remaining elements of social cohesion and continuity. As the reader soon discovers, however, the former far outweigh the latter in the events and trends characterizing the times.
Indeed, when one considers the radical departure between what existed throughout the world at the onset of the century as opposed to what prevails at its close, one is moved by the sense that the world had been literally transformed over the hundred-year span. Where once proud and autocratic kings, tyrants and potentates ruled with despotic indifference, now indifferent democracies, uncertain dictatorships, and benignly ignorant despots rule the stage. We've moved from unreliable telegraphs to instant wireless phones, from horse and buggy to space travel, and from death to an early age to whole societies of seniors planning to live well into their eighties and nineties. Where once people lived in splendid isolation from the outside world in a sphere only painfully connected from one community to another by mail, telegraph, and slow travel, we now have instant awareness of all that happens around the globe. So, if some of us are not entirely convinced of the progressive nature of this change, even we have to admit that W. B. Yeats captured the kernel of the times by warning things had "changed utterly".
As I mentioned above, this book provides the reader with a quite handy reference tool and a terrific overview, and is organized both in terms of time periods, geographical area, and also thematically around several key master processes that were instrumental influences in the century. It is expressly not the sort of expansive, detailed, and authoritative source for understanding or researching particular events such as the Depression or the Cold War. For those kinds of discussions one must turn elsewhere. But for its intended purpose of providing the serious student with an approachable, readable, and useful guide to understanding the main currents and highlights (or perhaps low points) of this explosive century, this is a wonderful book that belongs on every 20th century history student's bookshelf. Enjoy!
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Title: Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to 2000 by J. M. Roberts ISBN: 0140296565 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 05 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Twentieth Century: A World History by Clive Ponting ISBN: 080506088X Publisher: Henry Holt & Company Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: The American Century by Harold Evans, Gail Buckland, Kevin Baker ISBN: 0679410708 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
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Title: The Penguin History of the World (Penguin History) by J. M. Roberts, J.M. Roberts ISBN: 0140154957 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson ISBN: 0465023282 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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