1 quote from American History of the 20th Century: 'Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, who avidly supported U.S. entry to the war, was easily defeated by a more.
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- A history of time: 20th century time
- American History From the Civil War to the End of the 20th Century by Richard Rubin
He does stick fairly much to a faithful chronological narrative. The narrative herein works its way fatefully through the events leading up the First World War, guiding us through the tragedy of this most unnecessary of wars, and shows us how the various national interests and ideologies involved not only during the war but in its aftermath set the stage for what follows.
One is struck by how masterfully Gilbert threads his way through this most essential lesson of history; i. From China to Berlin, from Sarajevo to Washington, from Gallipoli to Paris, we follow the story of our own century as it unfolds, and the act of finishing this particular volume only whets one's appetite for the next volume, which covers the era from the Depression of the s through the epic events of the Second World War and the world that conflict created up into the s.
Gilbert's approach in this volume was the simplest method of approaching history. He simply goes from year to year. This method does not allow for topics be uniform and disjointed. Rather than seeing the rise of Hitler or WW I to be seen as an important event in history one is left with a set of facts that could be lined up in one column without an understanding of the whole picture. Gilbert does write well, researches well and has a vast knowledge. This volume would be better served if it was done by the events that were important during this period.
The best single-volume history of the 20th century by one of the greatest historians of that era. Highly engrossing narrative of key events. Condensed from his magisterial 3-volume set. One person found this helpful. Having lived thru the period covered I found Gilbert helped put things into perspective. A history book for those who want a broad understanding without all the fine detail which you look up elsewere if you need it. Gilbert mixes personal anecdotes with history.
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AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally. Amazon Inspire Digital Educational Resources. Amazon Rapids Fun stories for kids on the go. Amazon Restaurants Food delivery from local restaurants. ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics. East Dane Designer Men's Fashion. Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands. The years since World War II ended have been spent in the shadow of nuclear weapons, even though they have not been used in war since that time.
These weapons underwent momentous development: This new military technology had an incalculable effect on international relations , for it contributed to the polarization of world power blocs while enforcing a caution, if not discipline , in the conduct of international affairs that was absent earlier in the 20th century.
The fact of nuclear power was by no means the only technological novelty of the post years. The rapid development of electronic engineering created a new world of computer technology, remote control, miniaturization, and instant communication. Even more expressive of the character of the period was the leap over the threshold of extraterrestrial exploration.
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The techniques of rocketry, first applied in weapons, were developed to provide launch vehicles for satellites and lunar and planetary probes and eventually, in , to set the first men on the Moon and bring them home safely again. This astonishing achievement was stimulated in part by the international ideological rivalry already mentioned, as only the Soviet Union and the United States had both the resources and the will to support the huge expenditures required. The great power innovation of this period was the harnessing of nuclear energy.
The first atomic bombs represented only a comparatively crude form of nuclear fission , releasing the energy of the radioactive material immediately and explosively. But it was quickly appreciated that the energy released within a critical atomic pile, a mass of graphite absorbing the neutrons emitted by radioactive material inserted into it, could generate heat, which in turn could create steam to drive turbines and thus convert the nuclear energy into usable electricity.
Atomic power stations were built on this principle in the advanced industrial world, and the system is still undergoing refinement, although so far atomic energy has not vindicated the high hopes placed in it as an economic source of electricity and presents formidable problems of waste disposal and maintenance.
A history of time: 20th century time
Nevertheless, it seems probable that the effort devoted to experiments on more direct ways of controlling nuclear fission will eventually produce results in power engineering. Meanwhile, nuclear physics was probing the even more promising possibilities of harnessing the power of nuclear fusion , of creating the conditions in which simple atoms of hydrogen combine, with a vast release of energy, to form heavier atoms. This is the process that occurs in the stars, but so far it has only been created artificially by triggering off a fusion reaction with the intense heat generated momentarily by an atomic fission explosion.
This is the mechanism of the hydrogen bomb. So far scientists have devised no way of harnessing this process so that continuous controlled energy can be obtained from it, although researches into plasma physics, generating a point of intense heat within a stream of electrons imprisoned in a strong magnetic field , hold out some hopes that such means will be discovered in the not-too-distant future. It may well become a matter of urgency that some means of extracting usable power from nuclear fusion be acquired. The most attractive alternative is thus a form of energy derived from a controlled fusion reaction that would use hydrogen from seawater, a virtually limitless source, and that would not create a significant problem of waste disposal.
Other sources of energy that may provide alternatives to mineral fuels include various forms of solar cell , deriving power from the Sun by a chemical or physical reaction such as that of photosynthesis. Solar cells of this kind are already in regular use on satellites and space probes, where the flow of energy out from the Sun the solar wind can be harnessed without interference from the atmosphere or the rotation of the Earth.
The gas turbine underwent substantial development since its first successful operational use at the end of World War II. The high power-to-weight ratio of this type of engine made it ideal for aircraft propulsion, so that in either the pure jet or turboprop form it was generally adopted for all large aircraft, both military and civil, by the s. The immediate effect of the adoption of jet propulsion was a spectacular increase in aircraft speeds, the first piloted airplane exceeding the speed of sound in level flight being the American Bell X-1 in , and by the late s supersonic flight was becoming a practicable, though controversial, proposition for civil-airline users.
Ever larger and more powerful gas turbines were designed to meet the requirements of airlines and military strategy, and increasing attention was given to refinements to reduce the noise and increase the efficiency of this type of engine. Meanwhile, the gas turbine was installed as a power unit in ships, railroad engines, and automobiles, but in none of these uses did it proceed far beyond the experimental stage.
The space age spawned important new materials and uncovered new uses for old materials. For example, a vast range of applications have been found for plastics that have been manufactured in many different forms with widely varied characteristics. Glass fibre has been molded in rigid shapes to provide motorcar bodies and hulls for small ships. Carbon fibre has demonstrated remarkable properties that make it an alternative to metals for high-temperature turbine blades. Research on ceramics has produced materials resistant to high temperatures suitable for heat shields on spacecraft.
The demand for iron and its alloys and for the nonferrous metals has remained high. The modern world has found extensive new uses for the latter: In most of these cases the development began before the 20th century, but the continuing increase in demand for these metals is affecting their prices in the world commodity markets. Both old and new materials were used increasingly in the engineering industry, which was transformed since the end of World War II by the introduction of control engineering, automation, and computerized techniques.
The vital piece of equipment has been the computer, especially the electronic digital computer , a 20th-century invention the theory of which was expounded by the English mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage in the s. The essence of this machine is the use of electronic devices to record electric impulses coded in the very simple binary system, using only two symbols, but other devices such as punched cards and magnetic tape for storing and feeding information have been important supplementary features. By virtue of the very high speeds at which such equipment can operate, even the most complicated calculations can be performed in a very short space of time.
The Mark I digital computer was at work at Harvard University in , and after the war the possibility of using it for a wide range of industrial, administrative, and scientific applications was quickly realized. The early computers, however, were large and expensive machines, and their general application was delayed until the invention of the transistor revolutionized computer technology.
The transistor is another of the key inventions of the space age. The product of research on the physics of solids, and particularly of those materials such as germanium and silicon known as semiconductors, the transistor was invented by John Bardeen , Walter H. Brattain, and William B. It was discovered that crystals of semiconductors, which have the capacity to conduct electricity in some conditions and not in others, could be made to perform the functions of a thermionic valve but in the form of a device that was much smaller, more reliable, and more versatile.
The result has been the replacement of the cumbersome, fragile, and heat-producing vacuum tubes by the small and strong transistor in a wide range of electronic equipment. Most especially, this conversion has made possible the construction of much more powerful computers while making them more compact and less expensive. Indeed, so small can effective transistors be that they have made possible the new skills of miniaturization and microminiaturization, whereby complicated electronic circuits can be created on minute pieces of silicon or other semiconducting materials and incorporated in large numbers in computers.
The potential for adaptation and utilization of the computer seems so great that many commentators have likened it to the human brain, and there is no doubt that human analogies have been important in its development. In Japan, where computer and other electronics technology made giant strides since the s, fully computerized and automated factories were in operation by the mids, some of them employing complete workforces of robots in the manufacture of other robots.
In the United States the chemical industry provides some of the most striking examples of fully automated, computer-controlled manufacture. The characteristics of continuous production, in contrast to the batch production of most engineering establishments, lend themselves ideally to automatic control from a central computer monitoring the information fed back to it and making adjustments accordingly.
Many large petrochemical plants producing fuel and raw materials for manufacturing industries are now run in this way, with the residual human function that of maintaining the machines and of providing the initial instructions. The same sort of influences can be seen even in the old established chemical processes, although not to the same extent: In medicine and the life sciences the computer has provided a powerful tool of research and supervision.
It is now possible to monitor complicated operations and treatment. Surgery made great advances in the space age; the introduction of transplant techniques attracted worldwide publicity and interest. But perhaps of greater long-term significance is research in biology, with the aid of modern techniques and instruments, that began to unlock the mysteries of cell formation and reproduction through the self-replicating properties of the DNA molecules present in all living substances and thus to explore the nature of life itself.
Food production has been subject to technological innovation such as accelerated freeze-drying and irradiation as methods of preservation, as well as the increasing mechanization of farming throughout the world. The widespread use of new pesticides and herbicides in some cases reached the point of abuse, causing worldwide concern. Despite such problems, farming was transformed in response to the demand for more food; scientific farming, with its careful breeding, controlled feeding, and mechanized handling, became commonplace.
New food-producing techniques such as aquaculture and hydroponics , for farming the sea and seabed and for creating self-contained cycles of food production without soil, respectively, are being explored either to increase the world supply of food or to devise ways of sustaining closed communities such as may one day venture forth from the Earth on the adventure of interplanetary exploration.
One industry that has not been deeply influenced by new control-engineering techniques is construction, in which the nature of the tasks involved makes dependence on a large labour force still essential, whether it be in constructing a skyscraper, a new highway, or a tunnel. Nevertheless, some important new techniques appeared since , notably the use of heavy earth-moving and excavating machines such as the bulldozer and the tower crane.
The use of prefabricated parts according to a predetermined system of construction became widespread. In the construction of housing units, often in large blocks of apartments or flats, such systems are particularly relevant because they make for standardization and economy in plumbing, heating, and kitchen equipment. The revolution in home equipment that began before World War II has continued apace since, with a proliferation of electrical equipment.
Many of these changes were facilitated by improvements in transport and communications. Transport developments have for the most part continued those well established in the early 20th century. The automobile proceeded in its phenomenal growth in popularity, causing radical changes in many of the patterns of life, although the basic design of the motorcar has remained unchanged.
The airplane, benefiting from jet propulsion and a number of lesser technical advances, made spectacular gains at the expense of both the ocean liner and the railroad. However, the growing popularity of air transport brought problems of crowded airspace, noise, and airfield siting. World War II helped bring about a shift to air transport: The first generation of transatlantic airliners were the aircraft developed by war experience from the Douglas DC-3 and the pioneering types of the s incorporating all-metal construction with stressed skin, wing flaps and slots, retractable landing gear, and other advances.
The coming of the big jet-powered civil airliner in the s kept pace with the rising demand for air services but accentuated the social problems of air transport. The solution to these problems may lie partly in the development of vertical takeoff and landing techniques, a concept successfully pioneered by a British military aircraft , the Hawker Siddeley Harrier. Longer-term solutions may be provided by the development of air-cushion vehicles derived from the Hovercraft , in use in the English Channel and elsewhere, and one of the outstanding technological innovations of the period since The central feature of this machine is a down-blast of air, which creates an air cushion on which the craft rides without direct contact with the sea or ground below it.
The remarkable versatility of the air-cushion machine is beyond doubt, but it has proved difficult to find very many transportation needs that it can fulfill better than any craft already available.
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Despite these difficulties, it seems likely that this type of vehicle will have an important future. It should be remembered, however, that all the machines mentioned so far, automobiles, airplanes, and Hovercraft, use oil fuels, and it is possible that the exhaustion of these will turn attention increasingly to alternative sources of power and particularly to electric traction electric railroads and autos , in which field there have been promising developments such as the linear-induction motor. Supersonic flight, for nearly 30 years an exclusive capability of military and research aircraft, became a commercial reality in with the Soviet Tu cargo plane; the Concorde supersonic transport SST , built jointly by the British and French governments, entered regular passenger service early in In communications also, the dominant lines of development continue to be those that were established before or during World War II.
In particular, the rapid growth of television services, with their immense influence as media of mass communication, was built on foundations laid in the s and s, while the universal adoption of radar on ships and airplanes followed the invention of a device to give early warning of aerial attack. But in certain features the development of communications in the space age has produced important innovations.
First, the transistor, so significant for computers and control engineering, made a large contribution to communications technology. Second, the establishment of space satellites, considered to be a remote theoretical possibility in the s, became part of the accepted technological scene in the s, and these have played a dramatic part in telephone and television communication as well as in relaying meteorological pictures and data.
Third, the development of magnetic tape as a means of recording sound and, more recently, vision provided a highly flexible and useful mode of communication. Fourth, new printing techniques were developed. In phototypesetting, a photographic image is substituted for the conventional metal type. In xerography, a dry copying process, an ink powder is attracted to the image to be copied by static electricity and then fused by heating. Fifth, new optical devices such as zoom lenses increased the power of cameras and prompted corresponding improvements in the quality of film available to the cinema and television.
Sixth, new physical techniques such as those that produced the laser light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation made available an immensely powerful means of communication over long distances, although these are still in their experimental stages. The laser also acquired significance as an important addition to surgical techniques and as an instrument of space weaponry. The seventh and final communications innovation is the use of electromagnetic waves other than light to explore the structure of the universe by means of the radio telescope and its derivative, the X-ray telescope.
This technique was pioneered after World War II and has since become a vital instrument of satellite control and space research. Military technology in the space age has been concerned with the radical restructuring of strategy caused by the invention of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them by intercontinental ballistic missiles. Apart from these major features and the elaborate electronic systems intended to give an early warning of missile attack, military reorganization has emphasized high maneuverability through helicopter transport and a variety of armed vehicles.
Such forces were deployed in wars in Korea and Vietnam, the latter of which also saw the widespread use of napalm bombs and chemical defoliants to remove the cover provided by dense forests. World War II marked the end of the primacy of the heavily armoured battleship. Although the United States recommissioned several battleships in the s, the aircraft carrier became the principal capital ship in the navies of the world.
Emphasis now is placed on electronic detection and the support of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with missiles carrying nuclear warheads. The only major use of nuclear power since , other than generating large-scale electric energy, has been the propulsion of ships, particularly missile-carrying submarines capable of cruising underwater for extended periods. The rocket, which has played a crucial part in the revolution of military technology since the end of World War II, acquired a more constructive significance in the U. The first spectacular step was Sputnik 1, a sphere with an instrument package weighing pounds 83 kilograms , launched into space by the Soviets on Oct.
The feat precipitated the so-called space race, in which achievements followed each other in rapid succession. They may be conveniently grouped in four chronological although overlapping stages. The first stage emphasized increasing the thrust of rockets capable of putting satellites into orbit and on exploring the uses of satellites in communications, in weather observation, in monitoring military information, and in topographical and geological surveying. The second stage was that of the manned space program. This began with the successful orbit of the Earth by the Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin on April 12, , in the Vostok 1.
A series of Soviet and U. The third stage of space exploration was the lunar program, beginning with approaches to the Moon and going on through automatic surveys of its surface to manned landings. Again, the first achievement was Soviet: Luna 1, launched on Jan. Luna 2 crashed on the Moon on Sept.
The first soft landing on the Moon was made by Luna 9 on Feb. By this time excellent close-range photographs had been secured by the United States Rangers 7, 8, and 9, which crashed into the Moon in the second half of and the first part of ; and between and the series of five Lunar Orbiters photographed almost the entire surface of the Moon from a low orbit in a search for suitable landing places. Meanwhile, the size and power of launching rockets climbed steadily, and by the late s the enormous Saturn V rocket, standing feet metres high and weighing 2, tons 2,, kilograms at lift-off, made possible the U.
Apollo program, which climaxed on July 20, , when Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin clambered out of the Lunar Module of their Apollo 11 spacecraft onto the surface of the Moon. The manned lunar exploration thus begun continued with a widening range of experiments and achievements for a further five landings before the program was curtailed in The fourth stage of space exploration looked out beyond the Earth and the Moon to the possibilities of planetary exploration.
These findings were confirmed by the Soviet Venera 3, which crash-landed on the planet on March 1, , and by Venera 4, which made the first soft landing on Oct. Later probes of the Venera series gathered further atmospheric and surficial data. Research on Mars was conducted primarily through the U.
Mariner and Viking probe series. During the late s, photographs from Mariner orbiters demonstrated a close visual resemblance between the surface of Mars and that of the Moon. In July and August , Vikings 1 and 2, respectively, made successful landings on the planet; experiments designed to detect the presence or remains of organic material on the Martian surface met with mechanical difficulty, but results were generally interpreted as negative.
Photographs taken during the early s by the U. In the mids the attention of the U. It was followed by the Challenger , which made its first mission in April The Russo-Japanese War was one of the first instances of a European power falling victim to an inferior nation concept.
Japan and Russia were at war with one another in The war itself strengthened Japanese militarism and enhanced Japan's rise to the status of a world power. The war exposed the Tsarist Russia, who did not handle the defeat well, on military weakness and economic underdevelopment. The United States was an increasingly influential player on the world stage during the 19th century, making its presence felt by challenging the Spanish in the Spanish-American War, gaining Cuba and the Philippines as protectorates.
Since the turn of the Twentieth century, the world has witnessed a vast global change on an immense scale. With the onset of the rise and fall of fascism, Nazism, and communism, the recess of colonization, the technological revolution and the eventually rising superpower of the United States. Providing a comprehensive survey of the key events and personalities of this period throughout the world.
This new edition has been updated throughout to take account of recent historical events of the fall of Communism. Bringing the story up to date, Professor Grenville includes a discussion of events such the second Gulf War, continued economic problems in Latin America, the dismantling of the USSR, after defeat in Afghanistan. A History of the World includes discussion of major topics such as: Harry Whitmore The Author: He is recognized internationally for his documentary television work and is the author of a number of books, including Europe Reshaped, , and Politics, Strategy, and American Diplomacy.
While I only used portions of this textbook, I found it extremely helpful, and it is so cheap that I ordered a copy for myself to take to college as I am planning on studying History. If you're looking for a textbook to give you informative, clear, and detailed information on major and minor events around the globe during the 20th century, this is the best book out there. One person found this helpful.
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American History From the Civil War to the End of the 20th Century by Richard Rubin
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