Modern times
by Paul Bede Johnson · first published 1983
5mentions
3recommended by
3HN commenters
2013–2025first – last mentioned
100% recommend
The classic world history of the events, ideas, and personalities of the twentieth century.
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…couldn't form a government without the Army and Navy's assent/membership, pretty much made the following ugliness inevitable. You really, really don't want to let such a culture develop. Paul Johnson's Modern Times devotes a chapter to this: http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Times-Revised-Edition-Perennial...
on “Assassination Politics (1997)” ↗Sadly, historian Paul Johnson died in the past hours. His history of the XX Century, Modern times, and his biographies - among which are Intellectuals (1988), Creators (2006), Heroes (2007), Humorists (2010) - are some of the books one can warmly recommend.
on “The Best of Paul Johnson” ↗"Modern Times" and "The Birth of the Modern" by Paul Johnson which cover world history from 1919-1989 and 1815-1830 respectively. Amazing histories written in a breadth and exploratory depth that illuminate so much…
on “Ask HN: What are the best books you've read that few others have?” ↗…preparing the way for the gasp of approbation which greeted Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, fortuitously timed for publication in 1918 when the predicted suicide had been accomplished. Paul Johnson, Modern Times.
on “World War 3 to Be Fought over Semiconductors?” ↗…shoes" was always something people appreciated throughout all times and cultures (It seems I am indulging in anecdotes a bit in this page, but anyway) In the portrait of "Lenin" Ulyanov by Paul Johnson in Modern Times, you will read > Lenin left Zurich to return to Russia on 8 April 1917. [...] At Stockholm, comrade Karl Radek bought him a pair of shoes, but he refused other clothes, remarking sourly, ‘I am not going…
on “Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]” ↗