The beginning of a new millennium – let alone a new century – simply demands a quick but thorough look back at the past hundred years. Different outline sketches of the history of the twentieth century might all too quickly resort to headline-style formulae about “a century of war and terrorism”, “a century of barbarism”, and omit any mention of a great number of events and triumphs that should be rightfully regarded as entirely positive. These might seem to have been of secondary significance in relation to more sombre events, but they certainly cannot be excluded if our historical round-up of a hundred years is to retain its proper balance, if it is to be truly historical, and not be reduced to checklists of damage and destruction, of wars and disasters alike and their cost of lives and property, of the numbers of casualties, and of the people, places, and things that are now as if they had never been.展开