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vandiche's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
annabanana96's review against another edition
3.0
The book covers humanitarian catastrophes and atrocities of the 20th century as Hiroshima, the 3rd Reich, Stalin's Soviet Union, Rwanda, Mao's reforms, Cambodia and Tito's Yugoslavia with lots of small individual stories. It shows the lack of humanity in these times and the brutality with which people were treated and analyses the reasons. Contrasting to these dark times it tells of Kennedy and Krushev who circumnavigated a third world war by being humane and other instances of humanity. It's a good summary of the 20th century, but I've read books being more analytical and going more into the depths of human psychology (The better angels of our nature by Pinker and The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Fromm). I also found Glover's "solution" and safeguards against humanitarian catastrophes a bit naive and without much thought as to how to effectively implement them (world police, ensuring civil employees don't carry out inhumane actions etc.).
jessreads82's review against another edition
3.0
Humanity brought the atrocities of the 20th century together with philosophy and psychology to explain how they occurred, and how they can be prevented in the future.
The book fell short of its claim for me. The most interesting sections were the history prior to the atrocities, and I found myself skipping through a lot of the philosophical sections. The author was making a lot of vague and basic claims along the lines of things I learned in high school history class. The book also lacked any insight into issues occurring at the end of the 20th century, and what could be done to prevent them from getting worse. Or even, ways that that we can prevent atrocities from happening if they're occurring a world away.
For a more extensive 20th century world history I recommend Martin Gilbert's A History of the 20th Century.
The book fell short of its claim for me. The most interesting sections were the history prior to the atrocities, and I found myself skipping through a lot of the philosophical sections. The author was making a lot of vague and basic claims along the lines of things I learned in high school history class. The book also lacked any insight into issues occurring at the end of the 20th century, and what could be done to prevent them from getting worse. Or even, ways that that we can prevent atrocities from happening if they're occurring a world away.
For a more extensive 20th century world history I recommend Martin Gilbert's A History of the 20th Century.
rubel's review against another edition
4.0
My first non-fiction in a while. It's a very intense book, covering major atrocities of the twentieth century and trying to connect the dots from smaller ones to larger. The idea is to find parallels. Do transitions such as going from allowing a few "accidental" civilian targets in WW2 bombing -> encouraging firebombing of cities -> Hiroshima & Nagasaki mirror the transitions of dehumanizing prisoners -> coming to accept torture as ok? What combinations of fear and intimidation kept people from speaking up and helping under Stalin and Hitler and Mao? And why did some people keep small bites of their humanity while others were liberated to cruelty?
Anyway, a heavy book, but very readable. I enjoyed learning the history more than his philosophy.
Anyway, a heavy book, but very readable. I enjoyed learning the history more than his philosophy.
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