short twentieth century
Language: English
Part of speech: name
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈʃɔːt ˌtwɛn.(t)ɪ.əθ ˈsɛn.t͡ʃ(ʊ).ɹi/
ipa: /-ɪθ-/
ipa: /ˈʃoɹt ˌtwɛn.(t)ɪ.əθ ˈsɛn.(t)ʃ(ə).ɹi/
rhymes: -ɛntʃʊɹiː
rhymes: -ɛntʃɹiː
rhymes: -ɛntʃəɹiː
Forms: form: the short twentieth century
form: short 20th century
Etymology: The concept underlying the proper noun was developed by the Hungarian historian Iván Tibor Berend (born 1930), and the term itself was popularized by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) in his book The Age of Extremes (1994). Like the corresponding terms long eighteenth century and long nineteenth century, it aims to define historical eras by significant events rather than by the arbitrary beginnings and ends of centuries. The common noun was probably derived from the proper noun.
Senses: examples: text: How are we to make sense of the Short Twentieth Century, that is to say of the years from the outbreak of the First World War to the collapse of the USSR which, as we can now see in retrospect, forms a coherent historical period that has now ended? We do not know what will come next, and what the third millennium will be like, even though we can be certain that the Short Twentieth Century will have shaped it.
ref: 1994, Eric Hobsbawm, “The Century: A Bird’s Eye View”, in The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, →ISBN, section II, page 5:
text: In the wake of the end of the short twentieth century and the related collapse of the received certainties of the cold war which had shaped the understandings of European and American thinkers, it has become clear that a new integrated global industrial-capitalist system is taking shape. […] However, setting aside the issue of the overall evolution of the global system to one side, it is the case that the end of the short twentieth century has seen not merely debate in respect of the creation of an integrated system but also a concern for an apparently deepening tripolarity.
ref: 1997, P. W. Preston, “Global Changes and New Political-Cultural Identities”, in Political/Cultural Identity: Citizens and Nations in a Global Era, London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 91:
text: The year 1914 will be the crucial date for the beginning of this "short twentieth century," for the world war which began in August of that year marked a break with the classic liberal values of free enterprise, individual autonomy, and political liberty that had suffused nineteenth-century European societies.
ref: 2000 winter, Craig Moran, “The Idea of Communism in the ‘Short Twentieth Century’”, in Word & World: Theology for Christian Ministry: The Twentieth Century, volume XX, number 1, St. Paul, Minn.: Luther Seminary, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 Jan 2022, page 41:
text: [Karl] Marx’s philosophy and its concretely applied adaptations would have extraordinary consequences especially in the short twentieth century, from the outbreak of World War I through the fall of the Soviet Union.
ref: 2012, Brad S[tephan] Gregory, “Relativizing Doctrines”, in The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, published 2015, →ISBN, page 121:
text: The epoch from whose dreams I wish to awaken is the twentieth century, and more particularly what Eric Hobsbawm has called "the short twentieth century" between the outbreak of World War I on 1 August 1914 and the collapse of the Soviet Union on 31 December 1991—a period that was incidentally, and probably not coincidentally, the bloodiest in recorded human history.
ref: 2013, Derek Sayer, “Introduction”, in Prague: Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 7:
text: The continuity that exists between the two centuries would appear to distance [Carl] Schmitt from [Eric] Hobsbawm and his description of the short 20th century. But we must squelch this first impression. […] The long 19th century can be explained as adding the "setback of over 60 years", from 1848 to 1917, to Hobsbawm's short 20th century.
ref: 2021, Miguel Saralegui, “Modernity and Postmodernity: Chronology as Philosophy of History”, in The Politics of Time: Introduction to Carl Schmitt’s Political Thought (Social Sciences & Humanities; 4), Santander, Cantabria, Spain: Cantabria University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 231:
text: However, Wang Hui's strong dissatisfaction with [Eric] Hobsbawm's "short 20th century" is that he believes that this concept was developed mainly from the European perspective, without taking into account the proper place of Chinese events and the Chinese revolution in the 20th century, […]
ref: 2022 November, Rong Jian, translated by Ren Zhi, edited by David Rong, Calling Back the Ghost of Revolution – Critique of Wang Hui’s View on Chinese Revolutionary History (Translation Series of Contemporary Chinese Scholars), New York, N.Y.: Bouden House, →ISBN, page 121:
topics: history
human-sciences
sciences
glosses: The period between 1914 and 1991, from the beginning of World War I to the fall of the Soviet Union.
Coordinate terms: long eighteenth century
long nineteenth century