Description: As the millennium approaches, The Columbia History of the Twentieth Century offers a much-needed guide to the past one hundred years. Written by prominent specialists in fields that range from culture and politics to economics ant technology, it presents a linked series of 23 interpretive essays on the most significant developments in modern times Ranging from athletics to art, the economy to the environment, the authors help make sense of the competing views of the century that have emerged from many world cultures and communities. The result is an innovative portrait of the last hundred years of global history.

Rather than presenting simple, linear accounts, each author reveals underlying patterns of worldwide change James Mayall, for example, writes on nationalism, from the rise of European fascism to the rise of Asian and African nations; Sheila Fitzpatrick traces the history of communism and socialism in Moscow and Havana alike. In her chapter on women and gender, Rosalind Rosenberg covers the progress of women's rights throughout the world, from Middle Eastern activism to the American feminist movement. Jean-Marc Oppenheim's history of sports traces the spread of Western sports to all comers of the globe and the Western appropriation of such nonwestern activities as martial arts. In each, the important strands of history -- events, ideas, leading figures, issues -- come together to offer an illuminating look at cultural connection, diffusion, and conflict.

Arranged thematically into sections on culture, the political order, economics and technology, and the changes imminent on the eve of the next century, The Columbia History of the Twentieth Century helps everyone explore themany ways in which the past 100 years have been unlike any preceding era of human history. More than a chronicle of front-page news, the book is a series of lucid interpretive essays by those who know the subjects best.

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