Essays on Twentieth-Century History

In the discipline of world history, there has been a surprising paucity of thinking and writing about how to approach and conceptualize the long twentieth century from the 1870s through the early 2000s. The historiographic essays collected in Essays on Twentieth-Century History will go a long way to filling that lacuna.

Each contribution covers a key theme and one or more critical sub-fields in twentieth-century global history. Chapters address migration patterns, the impact of world wars, transformations in gender and urbanization, environmental transitions, scientific and technological innovations, and the emergence of the United States as a global power. All are written by leading historians in each of the areas represented, and each is intended to provide an introduction to the literature, key themes, and debates that have proliferated around the more recent historical experience of humanity.

Essays on Twentieth-Century History is an essential collection for scholars and students who wish to understand the recent past. It completes the trilogy in the Global and Comparative History series that includes Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History and Islamic and European Expansion, also edited by Michael Adas.

Michael Adas is Abraham E. Voorhees Professor of History and Board of Governors' Chair, Rutgers University at New Brunswick. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Machines as the Measure of Men, which won the Dexter prize in 1991, and more recently Dominance by Design. He is the co-author (with Peter Stearns and Stuart Schwartz), of World Civilizations: The Global Experience, which is now in its sixth edition.