The Oxford History of Twentieth Century

by Michael Eliot Howard (Editor)

In 1900 Queen Victoria still ruled over the British Empire, the imperial Manchu dynasty over China, and the Romanov Tsars over Russia. The cinema was in its infancy, with radio and television still to be developed. The earliest cars were on the road, but air travel was yet to come. Before antibiotics and effective vaccines against many common diseases, death rates were high. Over the course of the twentieth century, the human population of the world tripled, space travel left the realms of science fiction and became reality, two cataclysmic world wars and a host of other conflicts were fought, the internal combustion engine replaced the horse as the basic means of transport, and computer technology revolutionized communications. In this ambitious book, some of the most distinguished historians in the world survey the momentous events and the significant themes of recent times, with a look forward to what the future might bring.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World History

480 pages, Paperback

First published December 17, 1998

About the author

Sir Michael Eliot Howard was an English military historian, formerly Chichele Professor of the History of War, Honorary Fellow of All Souls College, Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University, and founder of the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

In 1958, he co-founded the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In 2013, Howard was described in the Financial Times as "Britain's greatest living historian". The Guardian described him as "Britain's foremost expert on conflict".

Reviews

[Penelope Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review is going to sound negative but it shouldn't - this book was interesting and exactly as advertised but... This sounds petty but the very small text made a seemingly small non-fiction book actually quite a long, dense read. Combined with some chapters that I should have skipped (development of physics in the 20th C, The Visual Arts etc) it meant this took longer than I expected.

Also, it brought home to me just how geographically narrow my history knowledge is. Once into the more conventional historical narrative chapters, Europe, North America and the Commonwealth flowed easily. But my lack of a base knowledge of Latin America, Asia and parts of the history of the Soviet Union meant that the rapid coverage of those areas was harder to follow. (I will have to make some decisions as to whether my current ignorance there is something I need to fix or accept - it's clearly bigger than I consciously realised.) This book does not give that base - trying to cover everything in 340 pages means a lot of assumed knowledge.

At the end of the day however, I picked it up for 50 cents at a library sale so I still feel pretty pleased about the acquisition.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

😨

[Julian Pritchard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the 20th C, it's a bit dry, but it has a nice bibliography at the end.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book made me feel smart :-) I read it to study for the foreign service officers test, and it is extremely comprehensive. The chapters are relatively short, and are divided generally by geographic region and time period. Some of more boring authors stood out as just cataloging of events and people, others made history more of a narrative story. The chronology of events, discoveries, and culture in the back of the book is invaluable for studying.

[za · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ternyata jenis buku itu beragam. Kebetulan kemarin sempat ke library@senayan dan baca buku ini. Buku ini lebih merupakan buku ilmiah. Ditulis oleh banyak orang, sebagai publikasi(?) dari hasil penelitian yang dilakukannya. Indonesia masuk dalam bagian south-east asia.

Aku cuma baca cepat saja buku ini. Tak tahan membaca banyak tulisan dan ingin membaca gambar? Hihihi...

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

easy to read