10 books that will help refresh and systematize knowledge about the events of the twentieth century
Miscellaneous / / April 03, 2023
Read documentary prose about Berlin in the 1930s, learn about the background of the Hiroshima bombing and more.
The 20th century is a "short century", "a century of changes", "a century of crowds". This time is marked by the triumph of scientific and technological progress, the fall of empires and bloody wars, the likes of which mankind has never seen. We know a lot about the last century, but some significant events still raise questions. Is a bloodless overthrow of the dictatorship possible? What is petrocracy and what causes the "Arab Spring"? The books of the Alpina publishing group will help you figure it out.
1. The End of a Regime: How Three European Dictatorships Ended by Alexander Baunov
The last dictators of Western Europe - Franco in Spain and Salazar in Portugal - held power in their hands for almost 40 years. Their ascent to the political Olympus, the years of authoritarian rule and the inevitable fall turned out to be very similar. About the reasons for the emergence of dictatorships, the mechanisms for maintaining power, the characteristic features of dictators and general signs of the end of the regime, journalist, publicist and former diplomat Alexander Baunov wrote a documentary novel.
The book instantly became a bestseller and went to reprint several times. The author avoids tendentiousness, does not historical parallels and does not comment on the agenda - it only documents the dramatic events in Europe in the second half of the 20th century, giving readers the opportunity to observe and draw conclusions on their own. The book is turned into a gripping novel by its characters — major and minor politicians, whose features turn out to be well known to the Russian reader.
Buy a book2. A Brief History of Europe, Simon Jenkins
Until recently, Europe had no precise borders: endless wars, dynastic marriages and imperial acquisitions eroded old boundaries and defined new ones. States were either preparing to fight, were already fighting, or were coping with the aftermath of conflicts.
Simon Jenkins' book briefly but meaningfully tells about the life of Europeans over four historical periods: Antiquity, Middle Ages, the era of the emergence of states of a new type and modernity. The author explores political events, the actions of influential personalities, and the cultural context, bringing together disparate facts into an orderly narrative.
Chapters 19-23 are devoted to the 20th century. From them it becomes clear what kind of leaders the era of two world wars lacked, why the United States is pursuing an aggressive foreign policy, and why the desire for peace is regularly shattered by pride and greed.
Buy a book3. "Countdown: 116 Days to the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima" by Chris Wallace and Mitch Weiss
After the death of US President Franklin Roosevelt, Vice President Harry Truman assumed control of a country that fought on three continents. After just 116 days, he made a decision that changed the world forever. The first use of atomic weapons led to the formation of a man-made desert on the site of an entire city and marked the beginning of a nuclear era that increasingly threatens security humanity. The book by Fox News journalist Chris Wallace and Pulitzer Prize winner Mitch Weiss chronicles the events leading up to the order and the people responsible for the choice.
The testimonies and letters used in the book turn the historical narrative into living pictures: families from the American suburbs who are waiting for fathers and sons are replaced by scientists. and engineers at the test site, and the morning of a bomber pilot in anticipation of the hour of X - the fear of a Japanese girl running as fast as she can from a wave of fire that burns everything on her way. The tension builds from chapter to chapter and culminates towards the end of the book. But, as in life, the most important thing becomes clear to the reader only in the epilogue.
Buy a book4. Japan: From Samurai to Manga by Nancy Stalker
In the 20th century Japan turned into a progressive state, retaining the power of the emperor and the traditions of their ancestors. Electronics, appliances and cars were supplemented by manga, anime, sushi and the term "kawaii". Leaving the war, the country came to the status of a cultural superpower. Historian Nancy Stalker, in her book, recreates the 2,000-year timeline needed to understand the background of these changes and their consequences.
From Samurai to Manga was a natural extension of the Introduction to Japan course written by Stalker for the University of Texas. The book briefly but succinctly examines the uniqueness of each period in the history of the Land of the Rising Sun. From the eighth chapter begins the story of the 20th century - the time of revolutionary changes, appeal to European values, the rise and fall of imperial militarism and economic a miracle that gave the Japanese the status of one of the richest and most stable countries in the region, and gave the whole world Toyota cars, Sony TVs and game consoles, songs pop idols, movies Akira Kurosawa, anime Hayao Miyazaki and more.
Buy a book5. "In the Monster Garden: Love and Terror in Hitler's Berlin" by Eric Larson
Berlin in the 30s of the XX century is a lively and bustling city, a European capital in which, against the backdrop of the revival of the economy after the First World War Nazis come to power and begin to crack down on the opposition, journalists, communists and the Jewish intelligentsia. The hero of the book is Chicago professor William Dodd, who has just received the post of American ambassador to Germany. Together with him, the reader will have a journey into the gloomy everyday life of the fascist regime - the first four years of Hitler's power.
The book is based on Dodd's own diary and numerous historical sources. According to the author, Eric Larson, the most difficult thing was to put aside the facts that are known now and follow two ordinary people, showing how they perceived the world around them then. As a result, the history book turned into a political thriller. Terrifying but exciting.
Buy a book6. "Chernobyl: A History of Disaster" by Adam Higginbotham
On the night of April 27, 1986, a radioactive rain fell in the Swedish city of Gävle, which neither the inhabitants nor the employees of the local nuclear power plant suspected. Until the next morning the sensor radiation control at the entrance to the station did not show the presence of contamination on all those who came. Alarming reports began to arrive from neighboring Scandinavian countries, but the reason for the appearance of a toxic cloud in the air remained unclear. The world did not yet know that a large-scale environmental disaster occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Saturday.
Adam Higginbotham's study provides insight into events Chernobyl through the eyes of the first eyewitnesses: the book is based on the memoirs of engineers, military men, scientists and doctors. The author managed to learn new details about the course of the disaster and show how the further life of its participants and witnesses developed. Their stories are told in the third person, making the text read like a fictional novel.
Higginbotham's work has received acclaim, becoming a New York Times bestseller and Time magazine's best book of 2019. And the author himself was awarded Andrew Carnegie medals.
Buy a book7. "Battle for the Past: How Politics Changes History" by Ivan Kurilla
Stories about the same event can focus on different aspects and not contradict each other at all. But more often than not, one version tries to replace the other with varying degrees of aggressiveness. And the further an event is on the historical scale, the easier it is to interpret it from a different angle. "New" interpretations are useful for politicians: they create the necessary image of the past to shape the mood of the modern societies.
In his book, Ivan Kurilla, a professor at the European University at St. "Yeltsin Center" for the "correct" point of view on some stages of the existence of the Russian state, as well as the difference in views on the Second World War in Russian and German textbooks. Analyzing these and other contradictions, the author explains how politicians manipulate the past and how to resist it. The book was shortlisted for the PolitProsvet award in 2022 and will appeal to those who want to study history from different angles.
Buy a book8. Arabs: History. XVI-XXI centuries, Eugene Rogan
The act of self-immolation of a young Tunisian in protest against corruption and the indifference of the authorities to suffering common people brought the "Arab Spring" to the Middle East, civil strife, economic a crisis and the long-awaited liberation from dictatorial regimes. A series of uprisings and mutinies took place in Tunisia without armed struggle and then swept through most of the Arab world. About the revolution, its prerequisites and other important circumstances that took shape in the countries of the Middle East from the 16th century to ours days, Eugene Rogan wrote a book that became a worldwide bestseller and book of the year by the Financial Times, The Economist and The Atlantic.
The author is sure that people in the West will be able to see the history of the Arab world in a completely different way if they look at it through the eyes of the Arabs themselves. Therefore, to create the manuscript, he used only local sources. The story of the 20th century begins with the sixth chapter and covers the stages of colonization, the events of the First World War, the Palestine catastrophe and the Cold War, the history of the discovery of deposits oil and the power that came with it.
Buy a book9. Mining: A World History of the Struggle for Oil, Money and Power by Daniel Yergin
This is a global study of the last 150 years of human history through the prism of the struggle for black gold - oil - and the influence that countries and leaders who have it receive. The narrative style of presentation turns the book into an exciting epic novel, where the main characters are government officials in search for the best deals for the extraction of a valuable resource, and readers - everyone who wants to understand the relationship between "rock oil" and higher structures authorities.
Daniel Yergin traces the path of oil from the role of a substance suitable for fueling street lamps to a central position in world politics and the global economy. The chronology is supplemented by an overview of the features of the industry in Russia - a state that was one of the first to launch the industrial extraction of the resource and is the main shareholder of one of the largest oil companies in the world.
Prey became an instant bestseller, was translated into 17 languages, and earned the author a Pulitzer Prize.
Buy a book10. "Nikolai Vavilov: The Scientist Who Wanted to Feed the World and Starved to Death" by Peter Pringle
Nikolai Vavilov was a Soviet agronomist and tireless researcher who wanted to end world hunger. He chose a difficult method: he traveled to different parts of the Earth in search of seeds of wild crops resistant to climate changeto study their properties and develop fertile miracle varieties in their homeland. But other people's vanity prevented great plans.
The fate of Russian science under Stalin through the prism of the life of an outstanding geneticist was written in his book by the American journalist Peter Pringle. In chronological order, he tells about the formation of the scientist and his expeditions, about the opposition of society the pseudoscience of Trofim Lysenko and the grave consequences of the victorious "Lysenkoism" for Soviet biology and citizens THE USSR.
This book is not only a biography of one of the most prominent Russian scientists of the last century, but also a vivid statement of the life and death of Russian genetics.
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