Age of extremes: The short twentieth

I've never read a better history than this one. The subject matter, the times in which I have lived much of my life, offers the chance to compare my own take on what I have known with the far more comprehensive understanding that Hobsbawm provides.

Feminism, plate tectonics, quantum theory, fascism, video entertainment, the Cold War, free-market economics and so much more are served up fully, but are never bogged down with too much detail. The intimate connection between society, the individual and the ideologies of the 20th century are put together deftly with a clarity that allows deep but quick reading. Not a single page is boring because Hobsbawm's breadth of knowledge leaves nothing hanging unattached, out of context.

He terms the period he covers "the short 20th century", bounded by the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the dissolution of the USSR in 1989. These boundaries mark the end of one era with the First World War and the end of another with the collapse of the only remaining challenge to capitalism.

How well did capitalism do over this period? Could communism have been called a success at any point? What was the single thing without which there would have been no Hitler? What is fascism and how is it distinct from totalitarianism? What explained the popularity of Ronald Reagan? Is Mick Jagger an artist in the same way as was Renoir? What was Dada and Bauhaus?