Introduction

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Conclusion

January 22, 2001 7:30 pm

Most conventional histories concentrate on polical-military events:

1. two world wars
2. Russian Revolution
3. Great Depression
4. Stalin’s Russia
5. Hitler’s Germany
6. decolonization
7. the Cold War.

No mention of Asia, particularly Mao’s China or industrial Japan. Nor of the Internet.

Still, the interesting question is, “What are the major events of the last hundred years?”.

The author identifies the following four themes that are unique to the 20th century:

1. the dominance of science in our thinking
2. a convergence of disciplines to provide a convincing story about the natural world
3. the decline of religion and the rise of psychology
4. the rise of technology

We are now living through a period of rapid change in the evolution of knowledge itself and in the use of statistics

This is a much more interesting list. I am delighted to have spotted the book on the shelf. It promises to be the start of something special.

Here is a copy of the individual chapter summaries:

1. Disturbing the Peace
   There was an extraordinary complementary of ideas at the turn of the century (psychology, biology, archaelogy, physics, art). There was a confident and optimistic search for fundamental ideas in the various disciplines. There was a noticeable shift toward science and its procedures.
2. Half-way House