description: 
  The Barnes &amp; Noble Review
 The 20th century is the period of history we know, as a matter of common knowledge, the most about. Martin Gilbert's A History of the Twentieth Century shows just how little common knowledge knows. This first volume of what will be a complete history of the century covers the period 1900 through 1933, from the embarrassment of the Boer War to the looming horror of the Second World War, predetermined by the rise to power of Hitler. In between lie 37 chapters  one for each year and three for the intricacies of the First World War  that recount in great detail the political, social, economic, moral, technological, and military advancements and retreats of the first third of this century. Two volumes down the road, each year of this century will be as thoroughly documented. Conveniently enough for Gilbert, our century breaks up cleanly into thirds. As well Hitler's coming to power, 1933 marked the inauguration of Roosevelt and the New Deal (and new direction) in America, and Stalin's first public show trial in the Soviet Union. The stage for the cold war is set. A third of a century later, with the forces of the cold war deeply dug in, the world is ready to explode in new directions: an escalating war in Southeast Asia; increasingly impatient civil rights and youth movements in the West; liberation movements and civil wars in Africa and Latin America. It has been an ugly century, and Gilbert will capture it all. It is a dauntingly ambitious project, and few have the qualifications to match the task like Gilbert. He spent 25 years writing an eight-volume,almostday-to-day history of Winston Churchill. And his masterful "The First World War" and "The Second World War" are authoritative and comprehensive guides to those conflicts. Gilbert has a talent for drawing out the links between events in history. He takes the reader through the first third of the 20th century in a coherent narrative that, despite the profound changes the world saw in that period, flows smoothly from country to country, event to event, tragedy to tragedy. As a document to explain the century we are soon to leave behind, Gilbert's A History of the Twentieth Century is unmatched. Greg Sewell
title: A History of the Twentieth Century Vol. 1 1900-1933