Preface

This book brings together a number of themes and threads that developed during the 20^th century and that culminated in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. That truly marked the end of the 20^th century, the end of the "modern" world. Events that occurred before the first world war in faraway places reverberated around the world until they hit the USA on that tragic day.

The 20^th century was as busy a century as there ever was. Every decade brought dramatic changes to the world order, besides social and technological changes that defied imagination. And, for the first time in history, "world" really meant the entire world.

One has to review the history of the entire century, from Africa to Central Asia, to understand what happened and why, and what may come next. This book provides such a short, compact, overview of the last century across the entire globe. It is meant for readers with no specialized knowledge of politics and history.

The first chapter analyzes how the century started: the old "powers" (mainly European powers), the spread of Marxism, the colonies; but also the emergence of two factors that will become two important themes for the rest of the century, one being technology and the other being the first international language with no frontiers: namely, sport.

The second chapter analyzes the first world war and its outcome. There was a significant shift of power, mainly away from Europe.

The third chapter focuses on the period between the two world wars, when new "isms" took hold of old powers: communism, fascism and nazism. They created absolute, tyrannical systems that would remain models for the rest of the century.

They also caused the second world war, which is the subject of the fourth chapter. Some important consequences of that war were the idea of uniting nations, the first examples of mass destruction and the partition of the world in two camps.

The fifth chapter is about the period after the second world war, when so many countries gained independence from their colonial power. A number of leaders affirmed different kinds of nationalism in their countries. It was a time when suddenly the world went from having very few independent countries to have more than one hundred of them, each of them with its own peculiarities. The complexity of foreign policy suddenly increased tenfold.

The sixth chapter is about the Cold War, which was really a sort of third world war. The winners and losers of that war include countries that were apparently only pawns in a big game. But those pawns will soon take on a life of their own and start playing a different kind of game. It was also a time when a new international language was born: the youth culture, whether rock and roll or student demonstrations. Women became ever more prominent. The entire world came to be fully dependent on oil. And terrorism became a serious issue in Europe.

The seventh chapter is about the last decades of the century, when communism fell and the US remained the sole superpower. This brought capitalism and democracy to countries that had lived under one or the other kind of dictatorship and favored the birth of free-trade zones in Europe, Asia and America. Unfortunately, it was also the age of drugs and AIDS, that caused colossal social damages. Weapons of mass destruction spread to minor countries. An Islamic revolution in Iran sparked a revival of Islamic fundamentalism. A huge gap appeared between the wealthy Western countries and the rest of the world. And suddenly the globe was dotted with new regional powers that were as engaged in dirty foreign affairs as the superpowers had been.

These developments led to Osama Bin Laden’s hyper-terrorism, that happened to be based in Central Asia because that is where a vacuum was created by the new world order. In this chapter all the threads presented in the previous chapters come together. Unfortunately, it cost the lives of many innocents. But, even more unfortunately, it was the consequence of millions of lives lost in the previous decades.

The last chapter is an attempt to read the future. Far from merely forecasting all sorts of catastrophes, I think that the countries and peoples of the world will undergo a major transformation in the 21^st century for the simple reason that some "fundamentals" will force them: we will run out of oil, people will live much longer, countries will unite in larger unions. The past and current state of affairs makes me pessimistic about the possibility of coexisting with Islam. On the other hand, I am optimistic about the future of Africa: once oil is removed from the table, Africa becomes the main source of natural resources for the world. I foresee fewer technological advances but no less momentous: biotechnology, artificial intelligence, space travel will eventually change our lives. I see more room for individual action, as everybody becomes less of an employee and more of an enterpreneur (a "prosumer"). I foresee less reliance on religion and a much greater role for philosophy.

But the core of the book is the history of the 20^th century, a history that tries to bring together everything that happened in every corner of the globe and synthesize its importance. And, as far as possible, tries to make sense of the senseless acts of destruction that seem to be an exclusive specialty of the human race.