Modern Times: The World from the 20s to the 90s

by Paul Johnson

Revised Edition
The history of the 20th century is marked by two great narratives: nations locked in savage wars over ideology and territory, and scientists overturning the received wisdom of preceding generations. For Paul Johnson, the modern era begins with one of the second types of revolutions, in 1919, when English astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington translated observations from a solar eclipse into proof of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which turned Newtonian physics on its head. Eddington's research became an international cause célèbre: "No exercise in scientific verification, before or since, has ever attracted so many headlines or become a topic of universal conversation," Johnson writes, and it made Einstein into science's first real folk hero.

Einstein looms large over Johnson's narrative, as do others who sought to harness the forces of nature and society: men like Mao Zedong, "a big, brutal, earthy and ruthless peasant," and Adolf Hitler, creator of "a brutal, secure, conscience-less, successful, and, for most Germans, popular regime." Johnson takes a contentious conservative viewpoint throughout: he calls the 1960s "America's suicide attempt," deems the Watergate affair "a witch-hunt ... run by liberals in the media," and deems the rise of Margaret Thatcher a critical element in Western civilization's "recovery of freedom"--arguable propositions all, but ones advanced in a stimulating and well-written narrative that provides much food for thought in the course of its more than 800 pages. --Gregory McNamee

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, World History, American History, Historical, Economics

784 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Paul Johnson works as a historian, journalist and author. He was educated at Stonyhurst School in Clitheroe, Lancashire and Magdalen College, Oxford, and first came to prominence in the 1950s as a journalist writing for, and later editing, the New Statesman magazine. He has also written for leading newspapers and magazines in Britain, the US and Europe.

Paul Johnson has published over 40 books including A History of Christianity (1979), A History of the English People (1987), Intellectuals (1988), The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815—1830 (1991), Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000 (1999), A History of the American People (2000), A History of the Jews (2001) and Art: A New History (2003) as well as biographies of Elizabeth I (1974), Napoleon (2002), George Washington (2005) and Pope John Paul II (1982).

Reviews

[Loring Wirbel · Rating 3 out of 5]

An agnostic wag once said, "Any fool can make fun of evangelicals, but if you really want to see a crazed doctrine, look for a conservative Catholic, preferably a conservative Jesuit." This certainly holds true for Paul Johnson, who mars what could have been a superbly written book of breathtaking scope, with points of view that aren't merely limited or blinkered, but downright crazed at times.

In the first couple chapters, I was ready to give this book an instant 5 stars, due to the author's ability to integrate economic, cultural, and political trends in a coherent whole. I did not begrudge him his tendency to paint all collectivist thought with a broad brush, if only because the world needed an appropriately sober look at the crimes of Lenin as well as Stalin.

But by the time we get to the 1930s, Johnson's oddball rejection of all modernist trends became a bit much to take. If he had been a traditional social conservative, or an economic conservative of the Stockman-Laffer school, one could accept his biases and move on. But Johnson is just plain weird, combining a Libertarian-like view of the power of the individual and a rejection of economic collectivism, with a near-devout belief in the power of empire. He rightly chides particular failures of the British empire in decline, like Anthony Eden's 1956 failure at Suez, but at the same time longs for a British and an American empire that would assert itself without regard to the consequences.

In his review of the 1930s, it's no surprise that he'd call FDR an aristocratic publicity-seeker and populist quack, and he'd be right in part. It's also predictable that he'd link the elder Philby's adventures in the Middle East to young Kim Philby's dalliances with the KGB. But to link all strands of 1930s liberal thought to the gay dilettantes of the Bloomsbury group in the UK? Not only does this hold a latent homophobia which Johnson displays throughout the book, but it attributes too much power to this group, in the same way modern conservatives are sure all 21st-century left-wingers have read Saul Alinsky. It just ain't so, folks.

Johnson's fractured-funhouse view of current events veers out of control as we hit the 1950s and 1960s. His analyses of Castro and other socialist "heroes" are traditional conservative views, not that far off base but not particularly interesting. But his demonization of former UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold as the man who allowed Third World risings and non-alignment to get out of hand is downright laughable. Memo to Johnson: whether the Soviets manipulated Third World struggle or not, the traditional empires were bound to fall - there wasn't a thing the US or UK could have done to retain their protected domains. At least Piers Brendon, the author of 'Decline and Fall of the British Empire', understood this far better than Johnson did, and provided a far more accurate narrative of the British geographical decline in the 20th century as a result.

The last 100 pages of Johnson's book are comical enough to skip entirely. Of course the strikes at the end of the 1970s doomed Britain, but only a fool still sees Maggie Thatcher as a savior. Of course the liberal media manipulated Watergate, but to try and call John Sirica a "judicial terrorist" is beyond the pale. Face it, seeing Nixon and Reagan as unvarnished heroes of the century, while seeing Jimmy Carter as an unvarnished villain, is a nonsensical two-dimensional view of the world.

Even in the latter chapters of the book, I enjoyed seeing Keynesianism get a tweaking, I loved the way Johnson linked Jean-Paul Sartre with Nazism and commented that all romanticism is close to fascism (which I certainly believe to be the case with Rousseau, Goethe, Schiller, Byron, Shelley, etc.). And I loved his quote about Utopianism being not that far from gangsterism. But Johnson ruins what would have been a provocative book in the Christoper Hitchens tradition with a series of loony conclusions about human behavior that are downright unsustainable, no matter what your political or economic beliefs may be.

[carl theaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

CONFESSIONS OF A HISTORY ADDICT

Knowing my wife isn't keen on reading history I certainly noticed when she added 'Modern Times The World from the Twenties to the Nineties' to the take-to-the-used-bookstore pile. When I queried what she was doing with a history book (hopefully not too
offensively)? she replied:

'I was going to read it back when I wanted to be smarter.'

Since we were trying to clear the shelves off a bit, I hesitated on keeping it, plus it was the size of a brick, or two. Not that I haven't read a few tomes in my time, it was that I had many other fun titles in the summer queue, and they were much shorter.

After a glance at the chapter titles, I knew I had to take a look. So I put it in the car to read at lunch, now and then, I told myself.

- The First Despotic Utopias

- Legitimacy in Decadence

- An Infernal Theocracy, a Celestial Chaos

- America's suicide attempt


Author Paul Johnson takes a high level view to the history between 1920-1990, with straight away explanations of how the 'isms' evolved and captured the fancy of so many in the East and West.

He makes some great observations, such as if education is the key, then why did Hitler come to power in the most educated country on earth ?

I also found compelling, that with the World in the grips of the Great Depression, of course, capitalism had its critics, what did the intellectuals do ? Run headlong into the fascination of the two, most evil regimes ever created, Hitler and Stalin.

This review could end up quite long if I mentioned all the fascinating subjects, the evolution of Japan as a modern power, FDRs manipulations, India, Vietnam, oh gee, about anything from the '20s-90s is covered.

The author has some strong opinions, with which you may not always agree, but it gets you thinking, I wish I'd had to read this book for a class somewhere along the line.

So after planning to cherry pick a few chapters, and taking a few notes, I realized I'd be copying most of the book. I ended up reading the whole thing and wish I had the time to do it again!

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A momentous project-painstakingly researched and vast in scope with attention to detail this is one of the best one volume books covering the world history of the 20th century.
A conservative perspective and therefore unlikely to be recommended reading in most university courses, which is all the more reason to read it, because it covers facts and truths that your professors in university never taught you.
Dissects the monsters of the twentieth century, such as Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot and Idi Amin and their hellish tyrannies.
And the author illustrates how these blood soaked despots operated.
Lenin showed his psychopathic nature before he seized power. At 22 he dissuaded friends from collecting money for the victims of famine on the theory that hunger performs a 'progressive function' and would drive the peasants to 'reflect on the fundamental facts of capitalist society'.
It takes an evil mind to think like this.
The Bolsheviks exploited the tensions between urban and rural populations, as a prelude to the mass killing of peasants in their hideously named 'Dekulakization drive'
Johnson reflects how 'No man personifies better the replacement of the religious impulse by the will to power" than Lenin.
Effectively Stalin was carrying on the work created by Lenin,
As regards Hitler, his philosophy was in fact in some degree also influenced by Lenin "There is no essential difference between class warfare and race warfare. between destroying a class. Between destroying a class and destroying a race. Thus the modern practise of genocide was born'.

Churchill pointed out in 1919 how of all the tyrannies in history the Bolshevik tyranny is the worst, the most destructive and most degrading."
Of course this was before the genocide carried out by Hitler and Stalin. There is no question that the regime of Mussolini could not be compared to the bloodthirsty horrors of Lenin, Stalin and Hitler.
This digest points out many facts that are overlooked. While Hitler thundered that the Bolshevik regime was 'Jewish'. and while it is true that many Jews had been prominent in the Bolshevik movements before the Russian Revolution, they steadily lost ground after the Bolsheviks came to power and after 1925 the regime was already anti-Semitic. Although there were always Jewish Marxists active in the Soviet regime who helped to persecute their own people. The Jewish Marxist have always rejected self-determination for Jews while advocating it for others.
During the 1939 Molotv-Ribbentrop pact, Hitler praised Stalin's cleansing of the communist project of Jewish influence. Johnson examines the war of the Soviet regime begun by Lenin and completed by Stalin, taking over 20 million lives, known as the 'dekulakization drive'. "It was typical of the way in which the pursuit of utopia leads a tiny handful of men in power abrubtly to assault a society many centuries in the making, to treat men like ants, and stamp on their nest.Without warning, Stalin called for an all out offensive against the kulaks. We must smash the kulaks, eliminate them as a class."
A kulak effectively meant any peasant who resisted forced collectivization.
This was one of the most horrific wars of a state against it's own people.
Going on to the rise of Hitler Johnson points out how the communist and radical left saw the Social Democrats as greater enemies than the Nazis and referred to the Social Democrats as 'social fascists' thus beginning the disease in which leftists up to and especially today refer anyone with whom they disagree (such as today anyone who is anti-Islamist terror) as 'Fascists'.
'Blinded by their own absurd political analysis the Communists actually wanted a Hitler government, believing it would be farcical affair, the prelude to their own seizure of power".
The author covers the trials and tribulations of the West, including Britain, America and Europe during this century, though I would perhaps not be as dismissive of Keynesianism and the welfare state in all cases, as Johnson seems to be.
Johnson illustrates how prior to the Spanish civil war, it was the Left who first abandoned democracy for violence and massacred thousands of peasants and clergy prior to the reaction of Franco and the Nationalists. The Republic was being steadily infiltrated and overtaken by Stalinists and it is almost certain that if it not been for the Nationalist victory, Spain would have become a Stalinist dictatorship rather than a National Conservative one.
Franco wisely kept Spain out of the war and his dictatorship after the Spanish Civil War was a fairly benevolent one.
Johnson completely takes apart the absurdity of anti-colonial conspiracy theories which are force fed to students at universities.
He examines the Watergate affair and relates how previous Presidents, including Kennedy and Johnson, had indulged in similar espionage.
But Nixon's 'imperial presidency' essentially destroyed by an imperial media which reversed the will of America's voters
The author includes a chapter on Third world regimes after independence, the horrors perpetrated by the FLN in algeria, and Idi amin's mass murder. Idi Amin's regime was a client of Gadaffi's. It was a racist regime and massacred the Langi and Acholi tribes within weeks of taking power. His personal bodyguard of Palestinian terrorists were the most ruthless and adept of his torturers and murderers
Johnson debunks the lie that the State of Israel was created by imperialism illustrating how the United Kingdom imperial government Roosevelt sided with the Arabs prior to Israel's birth and how every Arab-Israeli war after 1948 war was begun by Arab aggression.
A comprehensive history, a nuanced but never morally relative read from a perspective that needs more coverage. highly recommended.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this conservative take on 20th century history. The book claims to cover the Twenties to the Nineties, but really it was published in 1984* and the narrative stops at around 1980.

Nevertheless, the breadth of the book is amazing, covering not just this wide time period but events across the globe, with discussions spanning political, technological, and cultural spheres. The writing is concise and blunt, but also elegant.

Some of the author’s conservative takes are predictable, like his defense of free markets. Johnson notes repeatedly that when countries move in the direction of free markets, prosperity increases, and vice versa.

Some of the takes are… edgier. Like defenses of Pinochet and Franco (not full-throated defenses, but he argues they were better options than the available alternatives and elides over the human rights abuses). Other Johnson takes: Watergate was overblown. Colonialism wasn’t so bad. The Great Depression could have ended quickly if FDR would have just let the economy do a painful correction without government interference. Vietnam could have been won if we made better decisions (but given that we weren't going to do that, Nixon skillfully extricated us from the situation).

Johnson argues coherently for these points, though he doesn't go into a lot of depth on these issues (or any other individual issues, as there wasn’t enough space). So overall I don’t know what to make of them, but I did find them provocative and worth bring up. I’d be interested in reading a good critique of Johnson if anyone has one.

*I guess the book was originally subtitled “A History of the World from the 1920s to the 1980s” and subsequent editions renamed it. But I’m not sure what the edits are, it still doesn’t cover anything after 1980.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very detailed survey of the post-World War I years up to the early 1990's when this edition was published (an earlier edition was published in the 1980's). He begins by discussing the intellectual climate of the early 20th century - Einstein, Freud and others, how Judeo-Christian values had been abandoned and relativism in various forms had taken its place. Johnson describes the post-war era - the Weimar republic in Germany and the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the Russian revolution and the imposition of Communism under Lenin and Stalin, the takeover of Mussolini and his Fascists in Italy. He deals with events in China and Japan and India. Also, the events in the USA - the 1920's and the Great Depression of the 1930's and the presidency of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. World War II is discussed, its origins described and its aftermath - the Jewish Holocaust, the origins of the Cold War and the events of the Middle East. The end of the colonial empires of Great Britain, France, and Portugal, in India, Africa, Indochina and elsewhere. The Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949. The rise of apartheid South Africa. The end of the French Fourth Republic and the return of Charles DeGaulle in 1958 who instituted France's Fifth Republic and freed Algeria. The events of the 1960's, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the ouster of President Nixon. In Europe the beginnings of the Common Market and how it had evolved and expanded. The Oil Crisis and stagflation of the 1970's. The rise of Margaret Thatcher in the UK to become its first woman Prime Minister and the election of Ronald Reagan in the USA. The coming to power in the USSR of Mikhail Gorbachev and finally, the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. The book ends with a discussion of President George H.W. Bush's organizing of a coalition to oust Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis from Kuwait (what we now call the First Gulf War). Throughout the book he comments on cultural events of the various periods and the economic developments of the times. Quite a thorough history and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the 20th century.

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are not many books that I think everyone should read, but this in one such book. Even though the book ends in the 1990s, Paul Johnson's insightful analysis of the history of the 20th century gives the reader a new way of understanding how the world came to be the way it is, and what the political mistakes were that lead to many of our current problems. An overriding theme is that it is usually a mistake to place our faith in the "self-determination" of ethnic or religious groups. Instead, we should place our political faith in the rule of law. Another teaching is the danger of moral relativism preached by Marx and others; this moral relativism helped bring about plagues of communism and fascism. Whether you know very little history, or are well-versed in the subject, you will find this book very worthwhile. It will make you more interesting at parties, too.

[Eddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A conservative's view on modern history. I didn't like it because it only told one side of the story and was biased. The value in the book is how Johnson emphasizes and shows the importance of individuals in history. Mao and Chiang Ka-Sheck? hated each other and this precipitated the fall of China to communism. It was not inevitable. He also points out the importance of the example of the free west, mainly America. It was interesting to read these exact same sentiments in recent issues of Foreign Affairs.

[Sylvia Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is as far from a boring "tome" as one can get! Absolutely fascinating, it reads as easily and enjoyably as a novel, and does a superb job of explaining what happened to all of us from before WW1 to now. Highly recommended.

[JoséMaría BlancoWhite · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you thought the history of the world during the whole 20th century could not be told in about 800 pages, and told well, you were wrong. I, myself, was wrong. I haven't read from anybody with such capacity for pithiness and depth of analysis at the same time, and who can tell a story in such an easy-to-read way. It seems it took him no effort to get through, which obviously, for the amount of work and research put into it, cannot be so. You don't read this book, you soak it in. Starting before the 1st WW the story develops smoothly, effortlessly, one parragraph at a time, then chapters, but all connected, all meaninful to the whole story, which is the story of the 20th century. The author goes to wherever the action takes him, whenever it plays a role in the developing story. This book is an absolutely modern classic in social sciences, available to all types of readers.


I was a sceptic when I started this read, as to the vast canvas the author purported to draw us into, about his ability to get us through so vast a territory of space and time without loosing our interest. There was no doubt, after the first few lines, that this book was something of a kind, no reason for fears. He even picks a date to start the story of the modern world: May 29, 1919. That day photographs of a solar eclipse were taken off the coast of West Africa and Brazil, it piques our curiosity; then shares light into it; then takes us to 1905 when in Berna, Switzerland, a young Einstein works on his would-be Theory of Relativity. By little chunks of information, seemingly unrelated, we will complete the puzzle of the story, or -if you like, we will get to understand about the backstage and the main characters in the plot and so be on guard for when the play starts developing, because things happen sequentially, never at random. We'll see the Great Depression coming and fading away much later than it should have; we see the Totalitarian States developing; the Holocaust of the Jewish people; the scientific advances put into use by governments for their own schemes; we see the advance of Socialism in its diverse forms pop up throughout the world bringing the demise of the individual, of his liberty and also of his responsibilities; everything that made the world go around in the last century is collected here to form one whole picture. It brings a portrait of the zeitgeist of the 20th century.


“At the beginning of the 1920s the belief began to circulate , for the first time at a popular level, that there were no longer any absolutes: of time and space, of good and evil, of knowledge, above all of avlue. Mistakenly, but perhaps inevitably, relativity became confused with relativism. No one was more distressed than Einstein by this public misapprehension.”


Relativism is a concept not to miss here; it's going to play a major role to understand the sequence of events. That's why Einstein shows up at the beginning of the story, in the grand portico -so to speak- of this grand book. Relativism, not relativity, is going to affect the decision-making of the main characters, is going to spread like a deadly virus from one country to another, creating that zeitgeist we mentioned before. The 20th century is clearly the finest example when inventions and discoveries in the fields of technology and science were put to their worst possible use. Einstein discovers his Theory of Relativity, but others put his idea into a political and ideological mold, giving it their own spin, so they transform purely scientific discovery into a means by which intellectuals and demagogues can engineer their own societies worldwide. You can't win over one individual at a time, so what do you do? You win over his society, his immediate envoronment, so there's no escape, by coercion or plain violence. And so it happened in many other instances. Capitalism itself was too good a morsel to be left to the ordinary citizen to enjoy freely; the State had to have monopoly over it, one way or another, in China or in the USA, in India or in Cuba. The state will decide -in the 20th century- who's allowed to play and how much he is allowed to win. Sic transit laissez faire. This is the main lesson, social-wise, that we gather from the reading of this gigantic and wonderful book. With pity I remember Stefan Zweig's auto-biography where he mentions how different the US was between his first visit before the First World War and his second visit, right before the Second began. How he first had travelled without passport or having to go through any bureaucracy at all and how he could have found several different jobs in just a few days, how cosmopolitan he felt and free; and then, in his last trip he felt like a sheep being shepherded from one customs officer to another, filling in tens of application forms, being talked down to, like a delinquent asking for permission every time he wanted to move to another country. Those were the last days of individual freedom, when America was the Land of Opportunity, not just another cuasi-Socialist State like today; where one could tell the whiner “it's your fault, you made the wrong choices”, instead of having the State lead you into making the decisions they have made ready for you. No pain no glory; no freedom no responsibility. Oh, those were the days. How many of my ancestors have gone away, to America. How grateful we should be to that great country that took millions of human beings from around the world, people that were just waste to their governments, competitors for jobs to their fellow citizens. But then the Wall Street Crack came, and instead of treating it like one more cyclic crisis that the capitalist sysem uses every few years to clean up the excesses produced, the US government intervened and made it worse. It should have taken a year, perhaps two, but they made it worse because of the malady that had been spreading and of which we already spoke. The leaders thought that different times called for different measures... well, read it yourself.


This is a great book, no matter how you slice it, no matter where you stand on any issue; it can do you nothing but good; it will enlarge your perspective of the world and of all the great issues that matter to individuals and to societies. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better than the author's own History of the American People, I find this book and it tops it.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished this one! It's such a thick read that I had to read a chapter at a time interspersed with other reading. Modern Times is a history of the 20th century, or, more precisely, from Einstein's theory of relativity to the Gulf War. Paul Johnson is a British Roman Catholic historian/intellectual of a decidedly conservative bent. And by conservative I mean of the old-school type: free markets, individual responsibility, very limited government in the lives of citizens, and pro-traditional Judeo-Christian values. He hates communism, social engineering, government interference in the markets, and moral relativism, all of which he argues contributed to making the 20th century the most violent in human history. He covers seemingly every country or region in the world. What makes this book so compelling is its inter-disciplinary interpretation of the history--politics, economics, religion, philosophy, and science all have their place in the whole. Here is the last paragraph of the book:

"Certainly, by the last decade of the century, some lessons had plainly been learned. But it was not yet clear whether the underlying evils which had made possible its catastrophic failures and tragedies--the rise of moral relativism, the decline of personal responsibility, the repudiation of Judeo-Christian values, not least the arrogant belief that men and women could solve all the mysteries of the universe by their own unaided intellects--were in the process of being eradicated. On that would depend the chances of the twenty-first century becoming, by contrast, an age of hope for mankind."

Great read. I heartily recommend it.

[Melissa McClintock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that got me interested in world history. It isn't dry, with a lot of tidbits thrown in.

He also has a "premise" woven throughout the book, that with the change from moral thinking to "relative" thinking, there was a huge shift in culture and history. Including wars etc.

However he isnt' heavy handed about his premise, and instead of being biased, he just points out a supporting fact periodically.

It's a book that made WORLD history real to me, instead of something full of dates and political nuances.

Okay, it's on my top ten books of all times, and I read it like a novel. I couldn't put it DOWN.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent historical analysis of the twentieth century. Johnson's strength is to combine economics, politics, culture, science, technology and other strands of human endeavour into a cohesive narrative of events. Highly recommended as a conservative perspective on the 20s-00s.

[Christopher (Donut) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Galvanizing when I first read it. Re-visiting it, I could not finish, to be honest.

But I would still recommend it as a kind of "everything you know is wrong" book, especially for anyone who learned 20th C. history in American high school.

[Rudyard L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A staggeringly good book. Really bravo

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have come to this point, where something has intrigued you enough about Paul Johnson's history of the Twentieth Century to the degree that you are reading reviews about it, then I say go ahead and take the plunge. For some, it might be necessary to read Howard Zinn afterwards, just to balance back out--the idea is that neither of these two should be taken at face value, though they can be persuasive. The important thing to remember is that, depending on your private views, facts are subject to interpretation, and Johnson's conservative viewpoint is on full display in Modern Times.

That's going to infuriate some. Others are going to wholeheartedly agree, while others, like myself, feel caught in the middle. Still, I'm glad I read the book--I think Johnson's interpretation is not only important for its take on historical events, but also for understanding the conservative point of view. Even though I sometimes felt pulled in different directions while reading--sometimes agreeing, sometimes cringing, sometimes surprised--it was precisely the challenge to my preconceived ideas where the book has value.

[Николай Алексиев · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful overview of the 20th century from the eyes of a well-educated conservative. Johnson may underestimate certain developments or overestimate some events and historical figures, but his ability to create a narrative is superb.
Highly recommendable for everyone who wants to enjoy a well-writen history of the world, at least when it comes to the period from World War I to the 90s.

It's biggest drawback is Johnson's strong libertarian leaning, which makes some of his explanations and conclusions one-sided and even one-dimensional. On the other hand, most of his points are really well cited and supported by evidence.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never liked twentieth century history, but once I started this book, I gobbled it up. Johnson is a fantastic history-teller, with facts and wit and a sense of humor and of the importance of the human drama. He doesn't pretend to be "objective", if that means not making judgments or not caring about whether human actions are good or bad. He takes strong positions, frequently challenging liberal mythology, and supports them with many facts that allow the reader to begin making his own judgments. At least for the non-scholar of the period, Johnson's work is a must read.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Gil Smolinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

While its historical accuracy may be iffy, it does make for a fascinating read. Full review here https://smolinskiblog.co/2019/08/08/p...

[Ryan (Glay)]

Not Bad ... This was a fairly quick skimming read for me, it is long almost 800 pages.

I learned through Christopher Hitchens this apparently was the Right-Wing bible of 20th century history in the early and mid 90s. I thought Hitchen's had written a negative review but I've only been able to find his criticisms of Paul Johnson in an interview.

My major criticism is Johnson does spend a lot of time talking about European imperialism and colonialism but barely mentioning any of the brutality and crimes committed, while talking a lot about the crimes and mistakes of the post-colonial leaders. I'm open to nuance in this subject area but even for me it was a big too Pro-Coloinial/imperialism.

Lots of history i've already heard but here were some interesting bits to me
- lots of positives about the Coolidge and Harding administrations, those two American Presidents from the 20s you don't often hear much about.
- comments on Eisenhower's machiavellian governing style.
- the Bolsheviks actually raided and killed the British Naval Attache in the British Embassy in Petrograd in 1918 (what?!?!), apparantly this really turned Churchill into an anti-communist who adamently wanted to invade Russia unlike most of his political colleagues of the time.
- Stalin might have got his idea of his purges of the late 30s from Hitler's 'Night of the Long Knives' purge ... The Fascist and Communist totalitarian dictatorships seemed to trade nefarious ideas from each other through the 30s.
- A Good explanation/summary of the Levi-Strauss's 'Structuralist' ideas which really started to proliferate across the West in the 60s and dovetailed nicely with the huge expansion of University education (especially of the social sciences) in this decade.

[Vlad Golovach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely venom spitting book on 20th century.

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my view of Paul Johnson as I realized the man is ruthless toward every individual he sketches. I discerned only a few dim glints of admiration coming through (for Ike and Churchill) but even then he didn't withhold a few well-aimed critiques.

The theme of the work could fairly be stated:
“Men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all this seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of justice! The destructive capacity of an individual, however vicious, is small; of the state, however well-intentioned, almost limitless. Expand the state and the destructive capacity necessarily expands too. Collective righteousness is far more ungovernable than any individual pursuit of revenge. That was a point well understood by Woodrow Wilson, who warned: 'Once lead this people into war and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.”

And there you have the 20th century summarized. May it be a warning to us all.

[Ross Leavitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book accomplished thoroughly what it set out to do: tell world history from after the Great War to the time of writing. It put periods I have read a lot about, like Europe before and during WWII, in a clearer context, and introduced me to too many subplots to even begin to remember. Some highlights:

The spread and effects of communism. The loss of life and general chaos were on a scale I never imagined. I knew it was bad, but to read the details of what happened in Russia, China, Cuba, and nation after nation in Africa and south Asia when communism took over was just breathtaking.

The significance of decolonization. Of course he didn't state this clearly, but he gave enough information for the reader to realize that England and other Christian cultures had been fulfilling the great commission through their colonies. They guilt-tripped themselves into reversing their cultural evangelism, and most of the newly-freed nations promptly descended into Marxist tyranny. Many have yet to pull themselves out of this pathetic condition.

[Rafa Sánchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una obra maestra, un prodigio de concisión y sabiduría para resumir en 600 páginas la historia del siglo XX, el peor siglo de la historia de la humanidad. El análisis de Johnson de las personalidades políticas que han destacado en los cinco continentes no deja títere con cabeza, en toda la obra se hace patente su desprecio por la ingeniería social, de todo tipo. Johnson sabe dar un punto de vista novedoso a toda la historia del horrible siglo XX, fijando los leit motivs que impregnan las ideologías políticas más criminales : relativismo, materialismo, determinismo, estructuralismo, etc. Una maravilla de obra.

[Nikolay Mollov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Само от първите няколко страници се усеща огромният размах, с който пише Пол Джонсън. Приемането на теорията за относителността на Айнщайн и идеите на Фройд оказват своето влияние върху всички аспекти на човешкия живот като се започне от политиката и изкуството. В литературата най-много това влияние се отразява чрез Марсел Пруст и Джеймс Джойс и епохалните им творби "По следите на изгубеното време" и "Одисей", които пускат своите плугове на влиянието след себе си...

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you're into bullshit, read this book. According to Johnson, Calvin Coolidge was a great president and FDR was a screwball. Johnson is a complete and utter right wing moron. I hope he shares a room with Limbaugh and Beck in the nuthouse. If I could give it less than one star, I would.

[Masolerre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiempos modernos narra los sucesos más importantes, país a país, que marcaron el devenir de la humanidad entre la Gran guerra y los años 90. Los ejes ideológicos desde los que se juzgan los acontecimientos históricos oscilan en torno a un liberalismo conservador democristiano. Así, la práctica totalidad del relato histórico señala al político profesional, al tirano, al Estado metomentodo y a la ingeniería social predicada por la intelectualidad occidental y practicada por los anteriores como los principales responsables de las grandes y pequeñas catástrofes humanitarias del siglo, desde la Revolución de Octubre hasta la Guerra del Golfo. Johnson es implacable con su juicio sobre la descolonización que en muchos casos llevó al desastre económico y a los baños de sangre. Su dedo señala tanto a los líderes locales que la llevaron a cabo lo peor que supieron para después exculparse en el victimismo del relato hegemónico sobre el Imperialismo ( que tiene en sus precedentes el tratado de Lenin << El imperialismo, fase superior del Capitalismo>>) como a las potencias coloniales que pecaron, ya sea por dar mal ejemplo al actuar con crueldad e inequidad, ya sea por omisión al abandonar a su suerte a sus propios ciudadanos, que iban a ser maltratados por los nuevos dirigentes (el caso paradigmático de la Argelia francesa, donde el 10% de la población era europea, a lo que tendría que añadirse una importante minoría árabe afrancesada que fue la que más sufrió las represalias del FLN). Por otro lado, para Johnson el s.XX es el siglo del descrédito de las ciencias sociales, en general, y de la filosofía, en particular. La proliferación de la intelectualidad en el mundo libre causada por el derecho a la libre expresión, así como al crecimiento masivo del mundo universitario ayudó sobremanera a distorsionar la opinión pública en favor de excentricidades que el hombre de a pie, aquel más vinculado al sentido común, jamás aprobaría. Así, se da la paradoja de que el nacismo florezca en la sociedad más educada (por el grado de escolarización y alfabetización) del planeta, calando especialmente en el ámbito universitario. No en balde, el s.XX es un tiempo liderado por los jóvenes, frente al anciano con bigote que predomina en el XIX. La juventud, el impulso transformador, el romanticismo de la violencia es un valor constantemente promovido por todos los totalitarismos. Por su parte, los intelectuales occidentales (con Sartre a la cabeza) se ocuparon de engañarse y de engañar a los demás acerca de lo que ocurría al otro lado del telón, en China, en Camboya o en Cuba, perdiendo el sentido de la realidad y la confianza de la sociedad, que comenzó a desdeñarlos como a parásitos charlatanes.
En el origen de todo este descalabro humanitario Johnson sitúa el abandono de los valores judeocristianos, la infiltración del relativismo moral y el excesivo protagonismo del Estado. Como riesgos a futuro heredados de su tiempo se señala la imparable depauperación de la educación reglada ( fenómeno que se remonta a la América de los 60), en especial la universitaria, que se ha convertido en un foco de radicalidad estéril financiada por el contribuyente; el avance de las políticas identitarias, iniciadas también en EEUU con el lenguaje inclusivo y los cupos por razón de sexo o raza; o el fundamentalismo religioso, que empezó a devastar el mundo islámico en la década de los 80 y que ha desencadenado reacciones análogas en otros credos, impulsando el judaísmo ortodoxo o el nacionalismo hindú.
El único punto, a mi parecer, criticable al autor es la identificación de la defensa de su ideología con la defensa de aquellos líderes y gobiernos que el autor considera que la abanderan. Así, desde los parámetros con los que justamente enjuicia a muchos, olvida o diluye el papel que jugaron algunos líderes mundiales en la represión de las libertades civiles, que no se limitan exclusivamente a la defensa del libre mercado (en referencia a sus juicios sobre Franco o Pinochet). Por otra parte, no guarda el debido grado de rigor a la hora de juzgar a dirigentes que poco o nada se ajustaron a las exigencias autoimpuestas, llegando a justificarlos una y otra vez, echando la culpa, esta vez sí, a la prensa o a cualquier otra confabulación interna, como hace al evaluar las administraciones de Nixon o Reagan.
O.P: libro muy largo pero muy ameno por la infinita diversidad de temas que se tratan en cada capitulo y de forma breve.

[cool breeze · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an 870-page sweeping work that covers all of world history from the 1920s to the 1990s. It is truly global, including both developed and developing countries and encompassing politics, economics, science and culture. I think it is now a useful reference history, but not worth the time for a full read through, as I did.

The author, Paul Johnson CBE (1928-2023), was a British historian and journalist. He moved from the left towards the right with experience over his long life. In maturity, he favored free markets and small government and opposed socialism/communism, totalitarianism and massive welfare states. He was a religious believer and a prophetic critic of the consequences of the decline of religion, particularly its replacement by fanatic beliefs in political causes and environmentalism. He was a consistent critic of moral relativism and of self-anointed intellectual elites and academia. He may strike many younger readers as conservative, but I think he is more accurately described as a “classical liberal”, as Friedrich Hayek used the term favorably. He tries to get the history right, with a fair balance when presenting conflicting or irreconcilable points of view. This was first published when he was 55 and revised and updated with a long chapter when he was 63.

The book is carefully researched, but it is dense and slow reading and took me two months to finish. In general, I think Johnson got things at least 98% right, which is impressive, considering he covers nearly everything, everywhere, over eight decades. By far the biggest embarrassment comes in the last five pages of the chapter he added to the 1991 revised edition, where he writes of genetic engineering, “Earlier fears of ‘Frankenstein monster viruses’ being secretly developed and then ‘escaping’ from laboratories quickly evaporated”.

So, the book is an interesting, but increasingly dated, history. It does not cover or really anticipate the rise of the internet, information technologies and social media. It ends before the events of 9/11 and their aftermath. It fails to notice the rise of corrupt kleptocracies worldwide, although practitioners like the Clintons were within its time frame. It fails to really notice the gay rights movement of its period or anticipate that it would soon lead to legalized gay marriage, or that quiet acquiescence to this change would nearly immediately lead to militant demands to let every conceivable freak flag fly, including legal requirements for those who think differently to bake them a cake.

Overall, I think this is an impressive achievement, but I don’t think there is much of an audience for such a dated encyclopedic work. It filled in some minor gaps in my knowledge. A few examples are the Bloomsbury Group and some third world countries that mostly have remained or reverted to shitholes today, but so what? It is a good reference work, but I don’t think that I could really recommend it for a full reading to anyone unless they said they were specifically looking for a comprehensive modern world history ending in the 1990s.

[Philip Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute masterpiece. Paul Johnson takes on the mammoth task of telling the story of the twentieth century of *earth.* Beginning at the end of WWI, he takes the reader on a neck deep wade through the lake that is the twentieth century. In the space of 800 pages, he seemingly leaves no stone unturned as he unpacks the wars, the putsches, the ideologues and ideologies, the trends, the famines, the scandals, the inventions, the revolutions, the economic triumphs, and the crises. Basically, imagine Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire as a book. The book is filled with figures, stats, and data that can feel a little overwhelming at times, especially if it’s explaining something the reader doesn’t know anything about at all. The problem is exacerbated a bit when Johnson has to choose between sticking to purely telling the story chronologically or switching to a thematic approach. Overall I think Johnson does a good job finding the right balance, but at times it felt overwhelming trying to figure out exactly which bit I was up to. To combat this, I read the book at a snail’s pace (10 pages a day) and took notes after every session, just to try get the most out of it. I’m sure I’ll have to read it again a few times to milk it for all its worth.

Modern Times helped me connect isolated pockets of history I did know into one cohesive story. I also came away understanding the significance of people who’s names I know from their being celebrated in pop culture but didn’t really know anything about beyond that. It also exposed me to stuff I’d never heard of at all.

Johnson leans right politically, so in some ways the experience did feel a little self-indulgent, cheering as he celebrates the triumph of free markets and decries the failures of Marxism and big government. The book definitely confirmed a bunch of my priors, so I’d be interested to read some diverse thinkers address some of the events discussed in the book. Overall, Johnson sees the twentieth century as something humanity naively walked into with high expectations, only to have them dashed as we abandoned God and embraced moral relativism and the all-powerful state.

“It is one of the dismal lessons of the twentieth century that, once a state is allowed to expand, it is almost impossible to contract it.”
“The experience of the twentieth century shows emphatically that Utopianism is never far from gangsterism.”
“The outstanding event of modern times was the failure of religious belief to disappear.”

Johnson views the prosperity of the 80s and 90s as examples of the world’s learning lessons the hard way, and beginning to undo its mistakes. He finishes on a high note, observing the real gains that were made by the turn of the century. At the same time, he reminds us that the 90s faces its own unique issues, and it remains to be seen whether humanity’s 21st century counterparts will learn from their forbear’s mistakes or repeat them. So far it seems like a mixed bag.

“Certainly, by the last decade of the century, some lessons had plainly been learned. But it was not yet clear whether the underlying evils which had made possible its catastrophic failures and tragedies — the rise of moral relativism, the decline of personal responsibility, the repudiation of Judeo-Christian values, not least the arrogant belief that men and women could solve all the mysteries of the universe by their own unaided intellects — were in the process of being eradicated. On that would depend the chances of the twenty-first century becoming, by contrast, an age of hope for mankind.”

[Matthew C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Modern Times was one of the finest books I've read in the last 12 months. Due to cycles of busyness, I read this tome in spurts, but at no point was it ever dry or tiresome.

For the incredible scope and density of the material, it astounds me how well Paul Johnson can hold the reader's attention. Every page is packed with some surprising detail. He avoids the perennial pitfall of broad historical books like this: simply listing "one damn thing after another." Instead, he traces key themes (especially that of moral relativism and the intelligentsia's quest for utopia by any means necessary) which interpenetrate the events of history's most destructive century, with a legacy of 150 million unnatural deaths.

Johnson has a refreshing take on a number of events and figures and offers surprising, little known details that reshape the received wisdom that we often take for granted. At the risk of sounding cliché, this is a work that everyone should include in their personal education. I had considered myself more or less competently aware of the events and streams of thought of the twentieth century, but general summaries and bullet points are no match for actually reading the visceral details and key turning points of this fateful era.

This book, and the events it so acutely captures, will haunt me for years to come.