Modern Times

The World from the Twenties to the Nineties

By: Paul Johnson

Narrated by: Nadia May

Named one of the Best Books of the Year in 1983 by the New York Times, this fast-paced, all-encompassing narrative history covers the great events, ideas, and personalities of the six decades following the end of World War I. It offers a full-scale, if controversial, analysis of how the modern age came into being and where it is heading.

Beginning with May 29, 1919, when photographs of the solar eclipse confirmed the truth of Einstein's theory of relativity, Johnson goes on to describe Freudianism, the establishment of the first Marxist state, the chaos of "Old Europe", the Arcadian 20s, and the new forces in China and Japan. Also discussed are Karl Marx, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Castro, Kennedy, Nixon, the '29 crash, the Great Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal, and the massive conflict of World War II.

©1983 Paul Johnson (P)1988 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"Johnson's insights are often brilliant and of value in their startling freshness." (Los Angeles Times)
"Frequently surprises, even startles us with new views of past events and fresh looks at the characters of the chief world movers and shakers, in politics, the military, economics, science, religion, and philosophy of six decades." (The Wall Street Journal)
"Truly a distinguished work of history...Modern Times unites historical and critical consciousness. It is far from being a simple chronicle, though a vast wealth of events and personages and historical changes fill it....We can take a great deal of intellectual pleasure in this book." (The New York Times)

A must

Overall the book is great. Very well read but sound lacks volume. I certainly recommend it.

Listen to the Sample first

Paul Johnson is a historical genius in the wilderness. However, you should listen to the narrator sample before purchasing this. I may be old and losing some of my touch on hearing, but I found the narrator often hard to understand, or let her strong voice tail off at the end of sentences.

Fantastic overview of 20th-century history

As someone born in the 70s and raised in the 80s, this book recounts my history. It synthesizes much of what I lived through as a young American watching the world, and what I learned as a young American about 20th century history in school. (Although Johnson is much more thorough and much more in depth than anything I learned in school.) Johnson's critique of political zealotry and false hope in Marxist ideology is spot on. The possibility of leaving the evils of the 20th Century for a more hope-filled 21st century, which Johnson pines for in the final paragraph of the revised edition of this book, seem doubtful at best.

Very well studied and researched

Very well studied and researched even though I did not agree with ieverything. Probably understated the impact of Kissinger on American foreign policy. Overall I would recommend this book which covers a vast amount of events over nearly a century. Even during the course of one century there is large amount of empirical evidence suggesting the greater degree of economic freedom in the greater the rule of law the better off and more prosperous a people will be. A good acknowledgement of the flaws in social engineering and the social sciences more broadly

Great in almoat every way, except this is mistitled on Audible.

This was one of the influential books on my political and historical thinking when I read it in college in the late 90s. This presentation is first-rate, and the lady reading it is delightfully pleasant to listen to.

However, I wanted to point out that Audible has this mistitled. The cover photo and titling show the sub-title as "From the Twenties to the Nineties". Yet this is a 1988 recording of the original 1983 text sub-titled "...to the Eighties". While Johnson seems cautiously to predict the end of the Soviet regime, he wrote this before it happened. Later, he added a chapter to the 2nd edition which covered the revolutions of the late 80s/early 90s which discussed various events and figures that brought about the end of the Soviet Communist Bloc, and that 2nd edition saw the "Eighties" changed to "Nineties" in the title.

While I thoroughly enjoyed this presentation, I would recommend finding a recording of the 2nd edition instead as it seems a more fitting end to this narrative history of the 20th Century..