Survey of the twentieth century

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Historians already try to make a survey of the twentieth century. One purpose of history is to see long periods as a whole or at least to discover some overall trends. In general there is agreement about the fact that the twentieth century was an age of extreme tensions and war, especially in Europe or through Europe. The concrete views differ and there are several attempts to define the past century.

Contents 1 The European civil war 2 The short twentieth century 3 The long twentieth century 4 A turning point 5 Important phases (in Europe especially) 6 References

[edit] The European civil war

The "right-wing" German historian Ernst Nolte was probably the first who described 20th century history in general not as the result of two separate world wars, but as a European Civil War (1987: Der europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917–1945). The European wars were fed by irreconcilable tensions between "left" and "right".

One can add the cold war as another episode of this great European civil war and finally the Yugoslav civil wars. In a way, the great European war started and ended with a shooting in Sarajevo.

[edit] The short twentieth century

The "left-wing" historian Eric Hobsbawm uses the term "short twentieth century" for the period from the start of World War I to the fall of communism (1994: Age of Extremes), presumably intended to evoke historians' commonly used term "long nineteenth century", referring to the period from the start of the French Revolution in 1789 to the start of World War I.

[edit] The long twentieth century

On the contrary, the Italian marxist historian Giovanni Arrighi, describes a long twentieth century, one that was characterised by a persistent class struggle, wars and revolutions (1994: The Long Twentieth Century). In capitalism the world economy has peripheral and central areas. Arrighi defines in capitalist history four long centuries: Genoa's, the Netherlands', the British, and at last the American hegemony, which is now coming to an end.

The long twentieth century is generally said to have begun in 1870. It was marked by Reconstruction following the American Civil War in the United States, along with the Meiji restoration and the unification of Germany. In this period, we see the beginnings of women's liberation and the spread of democracy, as well as the commodification of agriculture and the growth of world trade, trends which played out through the rest of the century.

[edit] A turning point

Others cite as a turning point the end of World War II, dividing the century in half. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in particular redefined the paramaters of warfare.

[edit] Important phases (in Europe especially)

• 1914 Shooting of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo
• 1914 World War I, until 1918
• 1917 Lenin’s Bolshevist coup and Russian Civil War, until 1922
• 1918 end of the German monarchy, begin of the Weimar Republic
• 1919 Versailles Treaty
• 1920 The Red Army in Poland
• 1922 March on Rome, Mussolini’s fascist coup
• 1923 French-Belgian occupation of the German Ruhr
• 1923 Unsuccessful coup in Germany by Hitler
• 1926 Right-wing coup d’état in Portugal
• 1933 Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany
• 1936 Spanish Civil War, until 1939
• 1936 Front Populaire in France
• 1937 Heads of army executed in the Soviet Union
• 1939 German and Russian invasion of Poland
• 1939 Russian war on Finland
• 1939 World War II, until 1945
• 1944 Greek Civil War, until 1949
• 1945 Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• 1946 Death sentences in Nuremberg
• 1948 Berlin Crisis
• 1948 Left-wing coup in Czechoslovakia
• 1949 Foundation of NATO
• 1949 Foundation of West and East Germany
• 1951 First European treaty in Paris (European Coal and Steel Community)
• 1953 Revolt in East Germany
• 1955 Warsaw Pact
• 1956 Revolt in Hungaria
• 1958 Beginning of Fifth French Republic
• 1961 East Berlin closed with a wall
• 1964 Nikita Khrushchev dismissed
• 1968 Prague Spring
• 1971 Terror of Red Army Fraction in Germany
• 1973 First Helsinki Conference (OSCE)
• 1977 Charta 77 in Prague
• 1977 Another wave of terror in Germany
• 1978 Terrorists kill prime-minister Aldo Moro in Italy
• 1978 Election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II
• 1979 Greece joining the European Communities
• 1980 Bomb explosion in Bologna Central Station : 86 dead
• 1981 Great peace demonstrations in Brussels and Amsterdam
• 1981 Martial law in Poland
• 1983 Even greater peace demonstrations in Brussels and Amsterdam
• 1984 Mikhail Gorbachev in power in the Soviet Union
• 1989 Fall of the Berlin wall and of other regimes in Eastern Europe
• 1991 End of the Soviet Union
• 1995 Last gun fire in Sarajevo

[edit] References

• Hobsbawm, Eric The Age Of Extremes: A History Of The World, 1914–1991, New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.
• Nolte, Ernst Der europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917–1945: Nationalsozialismus und Bolschewismus Frankfurt: Proyläen, 1987.