short twentieth century
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
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: short twentieth centuries
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: […] Salvadorean history – including that of its literary development since independence – falls into three clear-cut periods: a very long 19th century until the Great Massacre of 1932; a very short 20th century from 1932 to the signing of the Peace Accords of 1992, and since then the possibility, at least, of a New Dawn of political reconciliation.
ref: 1997, Roy C. Boland, “El Salvador: 19th- and 20th-century Prose and Poetry”, in Verity Smith, editor, Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature, Chicago, Ill.; London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, →ISBN, page 286, column 2:
text: This essay explores the comparison between the revolution which marked the opening of Russia’s ‘short twentieth century’, the overthrow of Tsarism and of the Provisional Government in 1917, and the upheaval which marked its close, the destruction of both traditional and reformed Communist rule.
ref: 1999, Edward Acton, “The Parting of Ways: Comparing the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and 1991”, in Moira Donald, Tim Rees, editors, Reinterpreting Revolution in Twentieth-century Europe, London: Bloomsbury Academic, published 2017, →ISBN, page 56:
text: There is an alternative way of viewing the great events in the expansion and contraction of the [British] Empire in the last one hundred years. In this scheme the critical epoch falls within the framework of a ‘short’ twentieth century. The nineteenth-century Empire comes to a close only with the outbreak of war in 1914, and the twentieth-century Empire comes clattering down in the 1960s. […] Many of the chapters in this volume focus on the years of the short twentieth century.
ref: 1999, W[illia]m Roger Louis, “Introduction”, in Judith M[argaret] Brown, Wm. Roger Louis, editors, The Twentieth Century (The Oxford History of the British Empire; IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page 1:
text: The problem with ‘short’ twentieth centuries, therefore, is that they say more about the nature of the second half than the first.
ref: 2016, Nicholas Doumanis, “Introduction: Europe’s Age of Catastrophe in Context”, in Nicholas Doumanis, editor, The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914–1945, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 8:
text: The period covered by this book represents a ‘short twentieth century’ dating roughly from 1914 to 1970. In commencing coverage with the outbreak of the First World War, it begins where much historical discussion of Britain and Latin America traditionally finished. The late 1960s and early 1970s, where it ends, represented something of a watershed for Britain’s global role.
ref: 2020, Thomas C. Mills, Rory M. Miller, “Introduction”, in Thomas C. Mills, Rory M. Miller, editors, Britain and the Growth of US Hegemony in Twentieth-century Latin America: Competition, Cooperation and Coexistence (Britain and the World), Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISBN, page 25:
topics: history
human-sciences
sciences
qualifier: generally
glosses: Any period of years defined by significant historical events falling within the 20th century (1 January 1901 to 31 December 2000).