People's century, 20th - Godfrey Hodgson

In previous centuries history was made by aristocracies and elites, but the masses are now much more influential than in the past, due to developments in education, communication and means of production. This is the first of two volumes of a work based on a 26-part BBC1 series which tells the story of the 20th century by concentrating on the role played by ordinary people.;The first half of the century was dominated by the new mass ideologies of communism and fascism, and also saw two world wars, new ways of working in industry with techniques of mass production, years of economic prosperity and depression, and the possibility of escape from the harshness of reality through the new medium of cinema. This first volume takes the story of the century up to the struggles for independence of colonial peoples.;The author trained as an historian at the universities of Oxford and Pennsylvania, and has worked as a journalist for newspapers and television. His other books include "In Our Time", a history of the United States in the 1960s, and "The Colonel", a biography of Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Henry Stimson.