Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings Summary

One of many ways students broaden their knowledge of history is through attending lectures and presentations. In Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. lecture titled "A Life In The Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950 includes reflections from the twentieth century through a person who lived it all. The Twentieth Century was a crazy epoch of time, of trials and troubles; of tradegies and triumphs. The Twentieth Century was a glorious yet a doomed time period. The century was a time of science, technology, medicine, opening up new prospects, and opportunities for humankind. Although with these discoveries and advancements it was noted as a terrible century to some. According to Isaiah Berlin, he believed the Twentieth Century was the most horrendous century to the western history. For example, at least 160 million people were killed in violent conflicts, and more were killed due to totalitarian dictatorships. The Twentieth Century was not neccesarilly the best and easiest for democracies. In the democracies there was economic depression, racism, gross inequality, and spiritual vacancy. Moreover, there was revolutions against democracy destroying individual rights and the process of self-government. For example, there was fascism in Italy, Bolsheviks in Russia, militarism in Japan, and Nazism occuring in Germany. On the other hand, the Twentieth Century was sought to start with a high expectation of hope and optimism. According to David Starr Jordan the president of Stanford University predicted, "the man of the twentieth century will be a hopeful man." Furthermore, in the 1930s daily routines were complicated due to the lack of technology that is here today. For instance, people had to wind their watches every night because the battery operated one was yet to be created. The invention of sliced bread was still in the future and the invention of the ziper was not until the late 1930s. To go back to the twentieth century being doomed was having intense revaluation in the history of race relations. Revaluation was the changing of a price of goods or products. According to Arthur the study of slavery was still colored by indulgent views while attending college in the 1930s. Later on during June 1963, the governor of Alabama George Wallace attempted to block admission …show more content…
Schlesinger reguarding the Twentieth Century covered a lot of information in a short amount of time. This lecture was interesting and gave a new outlook on history. For example, Arthur lived through all these events and is telling of memory which was a different experience. His lecture gave history a more personal and real point of view compared to learning from a textbook. The information given was somewhat new because of learning from a new point of view. Arthur M. Schlesinger did thoroughly prove his thesis with adequate information of the events he endured and the accuracy of his information. Schlesinger's strengths in his lecture was his real life experiences. For example, he mentioned actual conversations he had with previous presidents and his memory of the events that occurred throughout the Twentieth Century. Although Schlesinger had some strengths he did tend to get off track and explain more of the glorious parts of the Twentieth Century. His thesis was proven but he could have improved on giving more evidence to support the so called glorious parts. Arthur M. Schlesinger's lecture regaurding the Twentieth Century was interesting and contained a variety of information for this time