A short history of the twentieth century / John Lukacs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lukacs, John, 1924-2019.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History, Modern--20th century.

History, Modern.

Physical Description:

viii, 230 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013.

Contents:

1 "God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines" 1

"Century"

An American century

The German potentiality

Hitler's primary role

1989 or 1945?

The American superpower presence

Stalin and the retreat of Russian power

The end of colonialism

Recovery and rise of China

The end of the Modern or European Age

From liberal democracy to the universality of popular sovereignty

2 "Now We Have Only Peoples' Wars" 16

A European War

1914: A short war?

But entire nations rushing at each other

Still a war between states

Mediocrity of most generals

Russia withdraws from the war

Communism: a seventy-year episode in the more than one thousand years of Russian history

The complicated history of America's entry into the First World War

3 "National Self-Determination" 30

A "new Europe"? Yes and no

The end of four great empires? Yes and no

Peace treaties and their grave faults

Consequences in Asia

"Central Europe" the crux, again

4 "Cossacks! Brethren!" 45

Communists

The nature of their fears

The situation of the Jews

5 No Nostalgia for the "World of Yesterday" 55

Uniqueness of the United States

Its influence different from that of other great powers

Its prosperity in the 1920s

The 1920s: the first (and perhaps the only) "modern" decade

"Depression" in and after 1929, but also American optimism: not much fear and not much hatred

6 South of the Border and Across the Pacific 66

The Southern Hemisphere

The Far East

7 "Middle Class" Is Not "Bourgeois" 78

The failure of liberal democracies

Authoritarian governments, dictatorships

A crisis of capitalism

The United States and other examples of parliamentary democracy

8 "I Was a Nationalist, but I Was Not a Patriot" 90

National Socialism

Hitler

9 The Wave of the Future 99

The Hitler decade

His domination of Europe

The coming of the Second World War

10 "I Hope It Is Not Too Late" 110

The Second World War

The European phase, 1939 to 1941

Germany triumphant

Five leaders

11 To Subdue and Conquer Germany and Japan 131

After Pearl Harbor, six months of Allied defeats

The naval and military turning points of the war

German ability to carry on

Mussolini eliminated

Turning the tide in the east

The Allied invasion of France

Hitler's determination

The conquest of Japan

12 The Division of Europe Almost Complete 146

Europe still the center of history

The new geography of the continent

The movements of people

Rigidification of the division of Europe

The "iron curtain"

First American reactions

Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan

Europe the center of the Cold War

Stalin and Asia

13 The Brave Harry Truman 153

The Cold War at its peak

The Korean War

Death of Stalin

The Soviet Union begins to retreat

American misunderstandings

Russia and China

The so-called Third World emerges

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The tensions of the Cold War lessen

14 American Nationalism, American Benevolence 164

America's century: more than that

Problems rather than periods

Changes in the composition of the American people

Uniqueness during and after the Second World War

American nationalism

The emergence of American "conservatism"

The United States toward the end of the Cold War

15 "Europe," and the End of the Cold War 174

"Europe": impreciseness of its definition

The principal object during the Second World War

After that, its division and the consequences

Attempts toward an integration of Europe

The decomposition of the Russian sphere in Europe

Its rapidity around 1989, while its consequences are not foreseeable

16 "Great Leap Forward" 183

The Third World

Near and Middle East

Far East and Australia

Africa

South America and the Western Hemisphere

The movements of peoples

17 The Limitations of Human Knowledge 206

A transitional century

Inheritances of the preceding one

Positive achievements

Technologies

Weakening enthusiasm for some of its applications

Cultural and civilizational decline

Shortcomings of scientific determinism; scattered recognitions thereof

We and our earth: again at the center of the universe.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Schneidman Fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9780674725362

0674725360

OCLC:

829937192