Product Description

This single-volume history takes us up to the 21st century, weaving a rich historical narrative of the multifarious and contradictory events of the 20th, ranging 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 that aims to make sense of the most destructive yet most creative century humanity has ever experienced.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #623110 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 864 pages

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 FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO, Sunday Times

It pays to be well qualified when attempting to condense an entire century, especially the 20th century, into 800 pages. As one of Britain's most distinguished historians, and already responsible for several authoritative publications, Sir Martin Gilbert more than fits the bill. A succinct introduction highlights a century during which 'some of humanity's greatest achievements and some of its worst excesses' took place. Equal consideration is given to both, and Gilbert succeeds in viewing it all with commendable objectivity, a notable achievement when you consider some of the atrocities that took place. As ever, war was an all too familiar feature of the landscape, and the century ended as it began, with conflicts sparking off or threatening to do so in many different corners of the globe. One style of imperialism declined only to be replaced by another less obvious but equally powerful one. Leaders of regimes who had their eyes fixed on eons in power fell by the wayside, while others managed to overstay their welcomes by years and sometimes decades. Borders disappeared and reappeared and worldwide refugee numbers topped 20 million as we welcomed the 21st century. The motor car and television arrived on the scene and both had a phenomenal impact - again, good and bad - that could scarcely have been imagined by those who witnessed the early versions. The great and the famous all play their parts here, but ultimately Gilbert focuses on 'the common man', for it would be the common man, according to Winston Churchill, who would suffer most during the century. Originally published during the late 1990s as three volumes, this condensed edition is the end result of almost four decades of research and writing. Effortlessly spanning the years and taking in both the seemingly mundane and the undeniably momentous, it is truly indispensable. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Martin Gilbert was born in London in 1936 and educated at Highgate School and Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1962, he became research assistant to Randolph Churchill and, after Randolph's death, succeeded him as biographer of Sir Winston Churchill.