Sunday 7 September 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Clemency Burton-Hill
Clemency Burton-Hill

Clemency suggests


Barbarism and Civilisation: A History of Europe in Our Time

Best or worst?

by Bernard Wasserstein
OUP, 900pp, ££25,
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Wednesday, 16th January 2008

After his famous ‘Age of . . .’ trilogy on the 19th century, E. J. Hobsbawm published a coda (best-selling but in my view much less satisfactory) on the history of the 20th century

After his famous ‘Age of . . .’ trilogy on the 19th century, E. J. Hobsbawm published a coda (best-selling but in my view much less satisfactory) on the history of the 20th century. It begins with a bleak page of epigraphs, among others from Isaiah Berlin — ‘the most terrible century in Western history,’ William Golding — ‘the most violent century in human history,’ and René Dumont — ‘I see it only as a century of massacre and war.’ This theme of ‘mankind’s worst century’ has become something of a cliché, and deserves closer examination, not least because it almost implies that the horrors of the age were natural catastrophes, like hurricanes or epidemics.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5  Next page 

Subscribe now

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments

Post a comment


Your comment:*

Your name:*

Your email address:*
(We won't publish this)

*Required information

Please click the button only once - your comment will not be published immediately

Peter Monro

January 17th, 2008 10:37am

what happened to the rest of the article ? or is it just one page ?

Related articles

A far cry from Paradise

Anita Brookner

The Gate of Air: A Ghost Story, by James Buchan

The iceman cometh

Sara Wheeler

True North: Travels in Arctic Europe, by Gavin Francis

Bright sparks of the Dark Ages

Tom Holland

Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer, by Robin Lane Fox

A chilly professional

Jane Ridley

The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby, by Angus Hawkins

Life and Letters

Allan Massie

Breaking the rules

Spectator recommends

Sky TV, Broadband & Talk from £16 a Month

Sky TV & free broadband packages available from £16 a month. Choose from a standard free sky box, sky plus...


Spectator classifieds

ROME CENTRE

PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique

City Breaks. ROME and PARIS

ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit  www.romanreference.com  and  www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.

Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).

Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs!  You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other