The Twentieth Century

A short while ago I received a message from a friend that  I had not seen fora good while.We had been active in the in the New Green Alliance. He wanted me to recommend a book to read on the history of the20th century.Much happened : Two world wars,the great depression, and the communist revolutions in Russia and China.

first Some Background: 

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I had grown up in rural Ohio.. It was right-wing Republican liberalism. Everyone was expected to pursue their own self interests and not worry about anyone else. My family followed this path. There was one difference however. Neither my father nor mother were religious.

I absorbed this culture. When I was in the 10th grade in high school I even got a prize for giving the best anti-Communist speech.. I was a bookworm. I was always at our local library. In addition I became good friends with my history teacher. I would go to his house on the bank overlooking Lake Erie. It was a relatively small house which he shared with his wife who taught English at the high school'. Books were piled up everywhere. He lent me all kinds of books on history..
I was particularly interested in the American Revolution and the American Civil War.
My mother's was adopted and her new father,Edwin Brown, was a member of the Order of Cincinatus, a private organization whose membership was limited to men who could trace their ancestors back to officers who served in the American Revolutionary Army. My mother had documents used to support this claim...all the way back to Lexington and Concord  and Georg Washington:'s army.
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I was also interested in the American Civil.War.My fathers family[three brothers and their wives ]  had left Ireland in 1846 and had gone to a community in Pennsylvania where others had gone before.When the Civil War broke out my great grandfather joined the Army of the Pennsylvania Volunteer and served in General Meade':s army and had fought in the battles which ended at Gettysburg. There was  a lot of detailed accounts  available on these two histories.

I left this community behind me when I went on to university. Both my mother and father hoped that I would follow the new Warnock tradition and become a member of the medical profession. They urged me to go to Duke University because it had a good medical school. So in the fall of 1952 I arrived at Durham North Carolina. It was a real shock. Complete racial segregation. An apartheid state in the middle of liberal America.

It only took me one semester to learn that I was not to be a member of a medical profession. I would pursue history, political economy and sociology. In my first history class, taught by Prof. from the University of Wisconsin. I am sorry to say that I cant remember his name..He suggested that I read Eric Williams,Capitalism and Slavery. Which I did. It was really the first book I read with a theoretical analysis. I learned the importance of trying to understand why things were happening.. What were the social forces at work. Counting the numbers was the easy part.
So this is why I am recommending my friend John Kern tread Eric Hobsbawm's Fractured Times; Culture and Society in the 20th Century.This was his last major work.