Twentieth Century History For Dummies by Se -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Title Contents Introduction

About This Book Conventions Used in This Book Foolish Assumptions How This Book Is Organised Icons Used in This Book

Part I : The Great War Years: 1900–19

Chapter 1: Overview of a Century

When (and How Long?) Was the Twentieth Century? Characterising the Twentieth- Century World Ch-ch-ch-changes! The More Things Change, the More They Are (Basically) the Same

Chapter 2: Fin de Siècle – Wrapping Up the Nineteenth Century

Europe: A Dangerously Unstable Continent America: A Waking Giant Central and South America Radical New Ideas The Brave New World of Science and Technology

Chapter 3: The Great War: 1914–18

A Powder Keg: Events Leading to the Great War Apocalypse Now: The War Starts (1914) All Not So Quiet on the Eastern and Western Fronts World Wide War Who Rules the Waves? Isolationist America The Times They Are A-Changing All Out on the Western Front: War’s End

Part II : The Years of the Great Dictators: 1919–45

Chapter 4: The Red Flag – Communism

Workers of the World, Unite! Socialist Ideas The Russian Revolutions The Great Experiment – Lenin’s Russia Stalin’s Soviet Union Worldwide Reds

Chapter 5: Men in Black (Shirts): The Right-Wing Dictators

At-a-boy, Atatürk! Persia and Reza Khan Mussolini Muscles In Hitler’s Germany Jackboots in South America Big in Japan

Chapter 6: The Twenties: The Decade that Roared

Lest We Forget: Dancing in the Shadow of the Great War Your Mother Wouldn’t Like It: Sex, Lies, and Reel to Reel Film The Noble Experiment: Prohibition So You Thought Slavery Had Been Abolished, Did You? You Need Wheels Money, Money, Money

Chapter 7: I’m the King of the World! Europe’s Empires

The White Man’s World The Natives Are Restless

Chapter 8: Depression and Aggression

The World Stops Working We’re on the Road to Warfare

Chapter 9: The War of the World

A New Strategy: Blitzkrieg Whirlwind War You Are Free to Do Whatever We Tell You: Occupation War Around the World Turning the Tables End of Round One. Stand by for Round Two

Part III : The Divided World: 1945–89

Chapter 10: You’re Cold as Ice! The Cold War

Things Can Only Get Better! (Can’t They?) When Two Tribes Go to War: A Bit of Background See? I’ve Got Friends! Cold War Alliances The Cold War Goes Global New Leaders – No Change Ending the Cold War

Chapter 11: Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me: The End of Empires

Sunset for the British Empire Taking French Leave Suez – Two Empires Humiliated

Chapter 12: Africa’s Wind of Change

Be Off, and Never Darken My Continent Again! Free at Last! Well, Sort Of . . .

Chapter 13: Going Bananas: Latin America

Latin America and Its Colonial Past Throwing Off the Foreigners Good Neighbour is Watching You: US Influence in Latin America Life in Latin America: The Middle Years The Cold War Years and Beyond

Chapter 14: Asian Tigers

A Quick Rundown of Key Events in Asia Japan – the Rise of the Rising Sun Korea – One Country, Two States Apocalypse Now – Vietnam India and Pakistan: After the Raj South East Asia The Wizards of Oz and the Orcs of New Zealand

Chapter 15: Disneyland: Post-War America

Land of Dreams – Fifties America Crazy Time – The Sixties America in the Seventies The Eighties, Reagan, and the End of the Cold War

Chapter 16: Red on Red: Russia and China

Comrades? (Maybe) Cultural Revolution in China Meanwhile, Back in the USSR . . .

Part IV : To the Millennium

Chapter 17: Muddle in the Middle East

When Israel was in Egypt’s Land Palestine: Two into One Won’t Go The Killing Grounds of Lebanon Islam – the New World Revolution Ba’ath Ba’ath – Black Sheep

Chapter 18: Europe Rides Again

Sunrise in the West Eastern Promises, Promises All Change! All Change!

Chapter 19: New Order: Wrapping up the Twentieth Century

After the Wall Is Over New Nations, New Dangers The Road to 9/11

Chapter 20: And the Living Is Easy – For Some

Techno Beat The Times They Are A-Changin’ To the New Millennium

Part V : The Part of Tens

Chapter 21: Ten Iconic Images

The Titanic Goes Down, 1912 Your Country Needs YOU! The Empire State Building Auschwitz The Mushroom Cloud Marilyn Monroe The Vietnam Girl Che Guevara Neil Armstrong Walks on the Moon Tianenmen Square

Chapter 22: Ten Triumphs of Technology

The Refrigerator Television Cats’ Eyes The Helicopter The Ballpoint Pen Satellites Heart Transplants Personal Computers Mobile Phones Barcodes

Chapter 23: Ten Films That Made an Impact

Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915) Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930) Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935) The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966) Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

Chapter 24: Ten International Bodies that Made a Difference

The International Committee of the Red Cross Scouting The League of Nations The United Nations The European Union The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) Amnesty International Oxfam Organisation of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) Greenpeace

Chapter 25: Ten BAD Ideas

Prohibition Totalitarian Dictatorship Racial Segregation The Domino Theory Concrete Tower Blocks Chewing Gum Plastic Wrapping Esperanto Sequels Flares for Men

: Further Reading

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