The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century - Tapa dura

splendid, edited by two distinguished historians who have assembled a team of over 20 scholars outstanding in their comprehensive precision and clarity ... this book is a solid, readable and reliable guide to the past century. Most readers will be pleased, and often surprised, by the skill with which its complex events have been set in their context. (David Killingray, Third Way)

edited by Michael Howard and Wm Roger Louis who cram this enormous task into 520 readable but sometimes breathless pages to sum up the major events and trends of the 20th century (Bob Williams, Beverley Guardian & Citizen)

Lots of full colour and black and white illustrations plus a detailed chronology make this book an interesting and entertaining read. (Bob Williams, Driffield Post)

if you need to research some aspect of this fast-ebbing century you will find clarity, clear thinking and acutely intelligent analysis in this book. (Lynne Mortimer, Ipswich Evening Star)

possibly the two men in the English-speaking world best qualified to edit such a compilation ... this is pre-eminently a book for the general reader... They write with such style and panache as well as obvious mastery of their subjects, and one reads them as much for pleasure as for instruction. ... This is a book to be heartily recommended./Philip Ziegler/The Daily Telegraph 12/12/98

Refreshing. / New Scientist/ Saturday 9/01/99

It's an impressive survey, deftly handled and wise in its judgements. Trevor Royle/Scotland on Sunday/Sunday 6/12/98

makes other denizens of the depot look like slowcoaches. ... The editors, of both irresistible persuasiveness and prestige, have secured, in most cases, the best-qualified contributors in the world. ... Most of the regional and chronological chapters are composed by masters of summation. ... This is a small book but a big achievement: a model of ambition without pretension, of compression without compromises./Felipe Fernandez-Armesto/The Times /7/01/99

Victoria still ruled over the British Empire, the imperial Manchu dynasty over China, and the Romanov Tsars over Russia. The cinema was in its infancy, with radio and television still to be developed. The earliest cars were on the road, but air travel was yet to come. Before antibiotics and effective vaccines against many common diseases, death rates were high.

Over the course of the twentieth century, the human population of the world has tripled, space travel has left the realms of science fiction and become reality, two cataclysmic world wars and a host of other conflicts have been fought, the internal combustion engine has replaced the horse as the basic means of transport, computer technology has revolutionized communications.

In this ambitious book, some of the most distinguished historians in the world survey the momentous events and the significant themes of recent and contemporary times, with a look forward to what the future might bring. They trace the continuities which have persisted over a hundred years and analyse the changes which have marked the century's progress. Early chapters take a global overview of the century as a whole, from a variety of perspectives ― demographic, scientific, economic, and cultural. Further chapters chart the century's course continent by continent and region by region, all written by acknowledged experts.

Beautifully illustrated with both colour and black and white plates, and with a detailed chronology, suggestions for further reading, and a full index, The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century is a valuable repository of information, offering unparalleled insights into the century we live in.