A History of the Twentieth Century: 1 - Softcover

Gilbert, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380713934 ISBN 13: 9780380713936

Publisher: Avon Books, 2001

Synopsis

The first chapter of this comprehensive history of the century begins with the dawn of aviation and covers the first thirtythree years, including World War I, the stock market crash of 1929, and the rise of Hitler in Germany. Reissue.

About this title

Review:

‘In his great work, the writing is lucid, the pace perfectly judged, the evidence vividly conjured. The horrors are heightened by a style of almost Confucian reticence, which teaches without didacticism. In Gilbert's vision of history, the vast range never blurs the human scale. He is inspired by a victim of the Japanese brutalisation of Canton in 1937: "Historians may appropriate only a line or two to record this present catastrophe, but it is tremendous to those of us that are in it."' FELIPE FERNĄNDEZ-ARMESTO, Sunday Times

From the Back Cover:

Martin Gilbert is Britain's leading popular historian. His 'History of the Twentieth Century' is a complete global narrative history of our century. The undisputed master of narrative history, he has an extraordinary ability to muster detailed facts into rich and compelling prose. He retells the events of this, the most horrifying and surprising century that the world has ever experienced, and makes sense of them in a global (and personal) context.

This single-volume history takes us up to the present day, weaving a rich historical narrative of the multifarious and contradictory events of the last century , which ranges across the bloody events of many wars (from Korea to Bosnia), the post-war resurrection of Europe and the United Nations, the Arms Race, the shooting of JFK, the advent of computerisation, Man's arrival on the moon, Aids and heart transplants, Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is history which makes sense of the most destructive yet most creative century humanity has ever experienced.

'A mammoth undertaking, a miracle of dense compression, demonstrating a sense of proportion sustained with extraordinary self-discipline and a capacity to absorb, digest and shape a mountain of miscellaneous material... A salient and invaluable reference book, austerely non-judgmental, lucid and measured.'
PHILIP ZIEGLER, 'Daily Telegraph'.

About this edition

• Publisher: Avon Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0380713934
• ISBN 13: 9780380713936
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 944