A History of the Twentieth Century 1900-1933, Vol. 1

by Martin Gilbert

What a terrible disappointment the twentieth century has been, was Winston Churchills comment in 1922. One world war was over, more than 6 million soldiers had been killed, and four vast empires had been destroyed. A second mass slaughterin which more than 46 million would diewas yet to come, bringing in its wake the arms race, the Cold War, and the nuclear age. This volume of Martin Gilberts three-volume narrative history of the century charts its first thirty-three years. Opening in the age of horse-drawn travel and colonial wars, Gilbert closes this volume with Roosevelt as the newly elected President of the United States, the inauguration of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, and the first of Stalins show trials in the Soviet Union. As well as chronicling the wars, revolutions, and political upheavals, Gilbert tells the story of ordinary men and women in every continent, making them an integral part of the events of which they were sometimes the beneficiaries and often the victims.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World History, The World

944 pages, Hardcover

Published November 5, 1997

About the author

The official biographer of Winston Churchill and a leading historian on the Twentieth Century, Sir Martin Gilbert was a scholar and an historian who, though his 88 books, has shown there is such a thing as “true history”

Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony's College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph's death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history.
Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He travelled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.”

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Reviews

[John Purcell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always need this book and the two following volumes near me. They have helped me so much in my attempt to understand the times I'm living through.

[Carol Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read and full of fascinating facts, if a little lacking in depth.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maps, pictures, bibliography, index, and rare notes along the way accompany more than 800 pages of an account of how people formed and lived in nations, changed their governments, warred against each other, were impacted by natural and man-made tragedy, and invented life-changing machinery and technology.
As the 20th Century dawned, the main players on the stage were the nations of Europe, ruled (mainly) by the children and grandchildren of Great Britain's Queen Victoria (who would live one year into the new century.) These relatives exchanged visits and honors as they sought colonies to further their influence and resources around the globe. All should have gone well.
Already, Britain parented Canada, New Zealand, and Australia; and governed Ireland, Scotland, and India. Islands here and there, and areas of Africa, were also a part of their colonies. As the 19th Century became the 20th Century, Britain was at war in South Africa with the Dutch settlers there (the Boer War).
Germany wasn't nearly as successful in its hunt for new colonies, but it partnered with the huge Austrian/Hungarian Empire and it had a good relationship with many other European nations. Its natural enemy was Russia, but the two monarchs wrote to each other using the familiar names "Willy" (Kaiser Wilheim II) and "Nicky" (Tsar Nicholas II) as they were third cousins, and the Kaiser was a first cousin of the Tsarina.
The United States, France, and Italy were also main players on the global stage, as well as Japan, China, and the Ottoman Empire. The way things got done is that diplomats smoothed over as much as they could and armies fought over what bumps remained. There weren't too many battle grounds for the first decade, excepting the Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Russo-Japanese War.
The large countries were improving the size of their war ships and their armies, to keep other countries from overstepping boundaries. So, when a Serbian assassinated the heir apparent (the Archduke Ferdinand) of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire declared war on the Russian protected Serbia, other countries lined up to help out in what was seen as a "quick war." It became World War I, the Ottoman Empire helping out Germany and Austria-Hungary (collectively called the Central Powers); and the French helping Russia and Britain helping France (collectively called the Allies). Interestingly, Serbia wasn't as much a hot spot of this war as little Belgium was (which had wanted to remain neutral). Also, Japan helped out on the side of Russia, France, and Britain. Italy stepped in to help out the Allies while the United States tried (in vain) to stay out of the fray. Both sides competed for its help, but Germany pushed the wanted help away by using submarine warfare against ships with United States citizens aboard. This war saw new ways of waging battle, as the armies were often dug into muddy trenches and stale-mated there. Then came chemical warfare, flame throwers, and finally tanks. What finally brought the bedraggled survivors home, though, was the growing refusal of men to keep fighting a losing war.
The conclusion of the war, the Versailles Treaty, in some ways became to rallying cry of Germany as an excuse to go back to war some twenty years later. World War II is not a subject in this book, but the years 1919 - 1933 are discussed thoroughly, and they became tremendous years of struggle themselves, as well as the prelude of World War II.
India, being a part of the British Empire, had sent its young men to fight alongside those governing them. India had also suffered the loss of thousands and thousands because of plague and drought. Of course, it is difficult to fight in a cause so far removed from a nation; while problems closer to home demand attention. Thus, the years after World War II saw India struggle to be free from the dominion of the British.
Russia was a whole different story. Russian soldiers were hard hit by the warfare. The Tsar seemed to hold such sway over their lives, and yet some new ideas had entered the national psyche through the writings of Karl Marx. Peasants and poor people, who had no say in the government and no apparent way to improve their lot in life, began to wake up to the idea of "revolution" or working together with other poor people to cast off the tyranny they saw as their monarchy. They were ripe for power-hungry people who used them to jump from the frying pan straight into the fire. Vladimir Lenin led the country in the Bolshevik Revolution. Also, once the royal family was disposed of (assassinated in 1918) and the World War no longer an issue for the Russians (they withdrew before the war was over), when life didn't get any better, those in power used the Jews as scapegoats. All this seems tragic, but it was to get much worse. Lenin wasn't long for life, and as he died, a vacuum for leadership was ripe for the most evil dictator the peasants could imagine, Joseph Stalin. His nearest competitor, Leon Trotsky, was given the boot and ended up executed in Mexico at Stalin's orders. Instead of improving their lot in life, those who farmed found they had to deliver all of their harvest to the state and starve themselves. Those who thought themselves political allies of Stalin found themselves at his mercy. Bloodshed and terror reigned across the land, all the while some other nations foolishly attempted to imitate the Boldsheviks.
China was ripe for these ideas and faced a similar mess (power-hungry elite using the impoverished to gain more and more power.) Italy took a little different path as it welcomed a dictator who could "make the trains run on time," Benito Mussolini. He called his style of dictatorship Fascism, and had admirers in America as well as Germany. Germany, reeling from the Versailles Treaty (they were to pay expensive reparations for World War I at a time when their people were struggling to find work and food), had people wanting to bring a Bolshevik or Communist Revolution to their country. The monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm II, had stepped down from the throne and moved to Holland. So Adolph Hitler, an extremely vocal enemy of Communism, gradually gained favor and followers in a different (and yet very similar) display of despotism. He spoke evil of the Jewish citizens of Germany and trained thugs (called "Brownshirts") to persecute the Jews. Perhaps those who stood alongside Hitler, or who didn't see themselves as one of his enemies at first, thought this attention on the Jews would be the only violence done. However, as wicked people distrust other wicked people, Hitler began to deal with other classes of people: religious people, gypsies, homosexuals, Polish, and Nazis he had no more use for.
Technological gains during these two and a half decades were the automobile, planes, cinema, and instant communication over long distances.

[Leanna Pohevitz]

Obviously a book of gruesome truisms and horrifying experiences, Martin Gilbert filled the History of the Twentieth Century Volume 1 (through 1933) with an exorbitant number of facts linking them across time and distance.
He attempted with much success to address all large problems of those first thirty years, still bouncing forward and backward for context to remain in one location for more than a page or two.
I also truly appreciated how often he attempted to offer only facts and avoid placing his opinion in the work, though of course when covering such a vast span of history it was inevitable that he would drop the ball on occasion.

One example that comes to mind was how terrible he was at referencing any women's struggles.
Another place where I was unimpressed was how he sometimes drowned the reader in names without giving them the necessary connections to the larger story. I often felt like I had only skimmed a few pages because such a large portion of the reading had only been people's names which I found impossible to retain.

[Frightful_elk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents a broad yet concise history from 1900-1933. The first of three books which aim to give scope to the entire twentieth century. It's an ambitious project and I'm sure much can be found in the way of criticism, but it provides invaluable insight and understanding into events of recent history. I found much in here to broaden and deepen my understanding of familiar events, and even more that was completely new to me. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in history, more especially as the events it records still have their repercussions in today's world.

[Richard Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine survey of a complex age where the timespan of the book saw the disappearance of the old age of strong autocratic monarchies (except France of course) where aristocratic privilege was supreme and their replacement by a patchwork of nation states in Mittel Europa and a republican Germany plagued by an unhealthy mix of war guilt and denial/

[Joshus Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

im at page 28 i am making good progress so far

[Edwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual, Sir Martin gives a solid performance. Very well written, highly readable, interesting overview of the first third of the century.

[Vera · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't like History, you'll like now.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written account of the first third of the twentieth century. It's long and it's dense, so be prepared for that, but it's still good

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written account of the first third of the twentieth century. It's long and it's dense, so be prepared for that, but it's still good

[LBA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great. Catches your attention from the first Pagés.

[Giuseppe Sepe · Rating 5 out of 5]

'What a disappointment the twentieth century has been', Winston Churchill

[George L · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great review of the early 20th century. Gilbert has an encyclopedic knowledge that makes his writing especially insightful. I learned a lot, especially about the aftermath of WW1

[Peter Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful, but limited.