Talk:20th century/Archive 2

Untitled
NOTE: this page is a complete archive of the talk page of the article The 20th century in review, which I am now merging into article 20th century, as per the merge suggestion which has been on both of the article pages for many months now. Teemu Leisti (talk) 05:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

This seems like such an important article. It needs plenty of TLC to include what is significant and yet exclude too much detail.

I also think it needs to put things into context rather than merely be a chronological list of events.

I've added some headings but there are surely lots more. Please have a go if you want to :) Julianp 04:31, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm having a go at this page. This is going to be a long project but a worthwhile one to cut my teeth in wikipedia --Glennl 13:13, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would also like to contribute - Iron Curtain, Cold War and End of Cold War/SU if not already taken.

Suggestion - people note areas they are/would like to cover here, to avoid accidental duplication. Jackiespeel 16:04, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Another comment - the first paragraph really overuses "unprecendented." this article could use a rewrite, someone.. --Karch 01:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Move
I'm glad to see that people are finally finding this article and are willing to contribute. Jackie's suggestion is great, please follow it. I will claim some parts for myself, perhaps. =) Question though: wouldn't it be better off at History of the 20th century? -- Jao 09:40, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

World War II
I have just added a massive section on world war ii in europe. I understand this will probably dwarf the other sections in the end, but it probably should, because world war ii laid the foundations for modern society, and brought advent of computers, nuclear weapons, and caused the cold war. International conditions today are largely the result of World war ii, so I think it appropriate to have such a large section. I would like someone else to do the Asia section, but I will do it if need be. I would like to claim the Holocaust and the nuclear sections. though.--naryathegreat 05:18, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * Also, I added paras about German blunders. I tried to add the in review part by talking about why it happened and why it mattered.  Also, these blunders are listed in many sources which are lengthy, detailed, and reputable and have been said as such by Wikipedia members.  I can list certain sources if need be to strengthen the German blunder paragraphs.  Also I don't think that it is POV to say that it's a good thing Hitler lost WWII.  Surely only a few hundred people think otherwise, and they're the same ones who want to kill Jews.  Surely you wouldn't say the Holocaust wasn't a brutal and immoral genocide?  These "obvious-to-everyone-but-a-few-crazy-fanatics" statements 'aren't POV, they're fact to civilized people.  So please don't go on crazy POV edits against the german blunders (I can back it up a thousand times over) and Nazi stuff until its discussed here.--naryathegreat 05:35, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

naryathegreat, your recent edits have unbalanced the article. However big an effect WW2 has had, it doesn't justify such a huge amount of text on a single topic, at such a high level of detail. Can't you stick this material in its own article, or integrate it into a more appropriate article elsewhere in Wikipedia? mk270, 00:02, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I totally agree with this. On my settings, the European WW2 now takes up three screens, while WW1 takes up about a half. It should be possible to take it down to at least a third or a fourth of the current amount, without losing the overview. This article is supposed to be a summary. Anyone who wants more information have the links they need. -- Jao 08:38, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * I also agree. WWII had without doubt a huge effect, but the details of battle don't belong on this page. It should be treated in a few paragraphs, telling the big lines, causes and turnign points, no more. - AR 22:28, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The WWII section goes into far too much detail for a "review," with individual battles, campaigns, etc. I think it should be reduced to the fundamentals: causes, players, main events (invasion of Poland, taking of France, the Eastern Front, attacks on Britain, D-Day, defeat of Germany, island hopping, atomic bombs, defeat of Japan). --Fastfission 18:40, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

List of topics
Topics like this will tend to have a large component of redirection entries.

Any suggestions for/additions to the following subject list?

The World in 2000
 * The World in 1900
 * Events 1900-1914 (This would include revolutions in China and Portugal, Russo-Japanese Wars, Balkan Wars and female emancipation).
 * World War I
 * Post War World (Treaty of Versailles, the Jazz Age and so on).
 * Rise of the Dictators (The Russian Revolution, Mussolini et al.)
 * Boom and Bust (Wall Street Crash and beyond).
 * World War II
 * Post WWII order
 * The Cold War
 * Decolonisation
 * 1950s
 * 1960s
 * 1970s
 * 1980s
 * End of the Short Twentieth Century: events of 1989-1991, including South Africa.

And broad topic headings, in no order at present:
 * Transport
 * Communications
 * Changing role of women
 * Minorities etc
 * Health etc
 * The rise of the International Organisation

Then regional headings
 * Africa
 * North America
 * South America
 * Asia
 * Australasia
 * Europe (including European Union)

With a reference "somewhere" to the series "People's Century"


 * I think all of these
 * "*Post WWII order; *The Cold War;*Decolonisation; *1950s; *1960s; *1970s; *1980s; *End of the Short Twentieth Century: events of 1989-1991"


 * should be placed under one heading as either Post WWII Order or Cold war, treating the various other headings in the story. It's important not to go into detail to much on overview pages such as this, or use heading that invoke details that will not be there. AR 22:33, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Russian Revolution
I would like to a section on the Russian Revolution, it's a bit 'thin' on this article. Thanks PGD 19:33, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Needs to cover economic history
Material could be paraphrased from the paper "Slouching Towards Utopia: The Economic History of the Twentieth Century" by Brad Delong. E.g.

"What took a worker in 1890 an hour to produce takes an a worker in a leading economy today only seven minutes: by this measure we today have some eight times the material prosperity of our counterparts of a little more than a century ago. But such a calculation is a substantial underestimate of the boost to productivity and material prosperity of the past century. We today are better at making the goods of a century ago, but we also have the technological capability to make an enormously expanded range of goods and services: from videocassettes and antibiotics to airplane flights and plastic bottles.

Beginning of the century
If you don't mind, I see a ton of problems just in the first few paragraphs:


 * The 20th century began with excitement and uncertainty. (For whom? According to whom?  Didn't it equally began with relief, dyspepsia, drunkenness, lust, indifference and dread.) With the increase in inventions in the late 1800s, the turn of the century was when inventions like the light bulb, the automobile, and the telephone finally became mainstream. (I thought the telephone and light bulb were actually well established by this time.  Maybe I'm wrong, but details would help.)  Thus, the turn of the century was met with great expectation the world over. (Even in Mecca?)  Alongside such progress in the 20th century, no one could have expected what a change 100 years would have on the political world. The United States made huge gains economically and politically, breaking the norm of a European-based world. (By 1900, "The U.S. emerged from the nineteenth century the world's leading industrial power, with 23.6 percent of the world's manufacturing output, compared to 18.5 percent for Britain, 8.8 percent for Russia and 6.8 percent for France" fsmitha) Africa, Central and South America, and Asia also broke away from their European conquerors and would gain their independence. (The Americas became independent ca. 1810-1830) ...


 * The 19th century was the most prosperous for the British Empire. Never again would the British Empire be as strong as it was during her reign. (The Empire continued to grow for another 25 years. In pure size, the Empire's peak was reached ca. 1925.  In fact, militarily, Britain is more powerful today, what with nuclear weapons, submarines and jet aircraft.  Also, the standard of living is higher today than in the Victorian Era.  Maybe that's a stupid observation on my part, but the phrasing in the article invites it.) Further, on mainland Europe, Germany and Italy had recently united a number of disparate states and principalities to form more or less what constitutes their modern equivalents. (Not so recently-- thirty-some years earlier.  By that standard, the Soviet Union recently invaded Czechoslovakia.)  ...


 * The United States was only a minor player in world politics during the 19th century. (How so? The Monroe Doctrine made the US the guardian/hegemon of half the globe.  The US Civil War disrupted the British textile industry.  The War of 1812 saw US participation in a global war -- the Napoleonic War.  America was the first western country to open contact with Japan.  American interests in China were among the reasons China wasn't partitioned like Africa and SE Asia.  Maybe the US was only about 5th on the list of great powers, but it was on the list.) visitor (Dec. 5, 2004)
 * I have attempted to address these concerns. --Slowking Man 06:39, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Was Gandhi just a movie?
The following sentence is telling:

European powers such as Great Britain also began withdrawing from possessions in Africa and Asia.

Now I've heard that history books tend to be slanted toward white males, but come on! No mention of Gandhi, Mandela, Ho Chi Minh?

For that matter there's no mention of universal suffrage.

I sense a major rewrite coming.

Brunnock 01:50, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

It would be nice if this article were a little more global. Tobias087 08:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Israel and Palestine
''The Palestine’s within Israel itself have also actively resisted what they term as "Israeli occupation". The First Intifada and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin are two examples of this.''

Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish fundamentalist. That's not an example of Palestinian resistance.

Brunnock 01:55, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * Whoops. Now fixed. --Slowking Man 09:46, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

can some one metion the growing powers of china and india at the 21st century section

This section is worthless as written. For these reasons, I am deleting this section. nadav 02:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) It gets the facts wrong. "partitioned the area into Palestinian and Jewish territories with United Nations assistance." No, in actuality, the UN partition plan was rejected by the Arabs.  After Britain withdrew, an Israeli state was declared. Its borders were the result of the 1949 Armistice Agreements.
 * 2) "The ethnic, religious, and political tensions created by this have plagued the world ever since, setting public opinion throughout the Arab and Muslim world against western nations, particularly the United States, that support Israel." This sentence completely violates WP:NPOV.  Indeed, support for Israel is only one factor in the complex relationship between the Arab world and the West, and other explanations have been offered for why the US is resented (see Anti-americanism).
 * 3) "The Palestinians within Israel itself have also actively resisted Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip as well as in the west bank" could be implying that the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Israel itself are one.
 * 4) In general, I oppose this section since it seeks to cast the conflict as something on par with the end of the cold war, information age, EU, and other momentous world events since WWII.  This is ridiculous. Indeed, the whole Arab-Israeli conflict was largely a plaything of the Cold war powers.

I would not object to a section that would include various smaller-scale conflicts that took place since WWII, such as the Rwandan genocide, Bosnian war, terrorism etc. nadav 02:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Was IBM BIOS open or proprietary?
This is discussed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_20th_century_in_review

''IBM decided on an open architecture so that other manufacturers could produce and sell peripheral components and compatible software. The ROM BIOS source code was published. IBM did not anticipate that its competitors would find ways to legally duplicate the entire system.''

and discussed further at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC

''IBM made all specifications for their computer open rather than proprietary, with the exception of their BIOS. As the only impediment to an open system with interchangeable suppliers was this BIOS, it was reverse-engineered by Compaq, and the IBM PC became the first fully open-specification computer system, leading to its current dominance in the marketplace. Riding on this wave of popularity, the operating system vendors for the PC (Microsoft) leveraged their position to become the most powerful software company in the world.''

--Flsaisalie 22:50, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Answered at Talk:Bill Gates. Gazpacho 00:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

This article should be named "Twentieth century"
I think that the content in this article corresponds much more to what people look for when they type "20th century" than the current article, which is basically a list of events, achievements, etc. The current article could be adapted and renamed "List of important developments, events and achievements of the 20th century"--Ezadarque 13:04, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a terrible article. From reading this article, one would think that the 20th century consisted of WWI, WWII and the Cold War. It's also almost entirely Western-centric. There's no mention of Gandhi, the Cultural Revolution or the Arab League. It's also devoid of anything regarding Africa or South America. --Sean Brunnock 13:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Those are valid points. But the 20th century article is as western-centric as this one, so they both need a lot of improvement on that account. What I'm referring to is that the article people look for when they type twentieth century is probably a coherent article, not a list of developments. Moreover, if this was the main article on the century, it would be a lot more visible for improvements, so that it woul be less western-centric.--Ezadarque 13:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you should concentrate on improving this article first. --Sean Brunnock 14:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Between this article, the survey of the twentieth century article, and the 20th century article, I wonder how many other fully comprehensive 20th century articles are floating around here (though I doubt any are really comprehensive, given the abundance of limited geographic scope tags). I feel like merging all three together into one gigantic, 200 KB Frankenarticle, and sorting the bodies out later. Is there really a true distinction between the 20th century, Survey of the 20th century, and the 20th century in review? Xaxafrad 05:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


 * All of the century articles are supposed to adhere to the standard layout specified on Timeline standards. --Sean Brunnock 13:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Does that mean the 20th century page, being closest to the above layout, should be the genuine article with the other 2 articles merging their content out and becoming redirects? Xaxafrad 02:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

There were already merge suggestions from both this article, and from Survey of the twentieth century, to 20th century and to each other. I agree some merging should take place, into one, or at most two, articles. I suggest we discuss this on the 20th century article's talk page. I edited the merge template to "mergeto", to point at that article and its talk page. Teemu Leisti 00:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The Growth Fallacy
It is incorrect to consider that economic growth during the 20th century was greater than in the 19th century, especially for europe and the united states. Asia certainly progressed much more during the 20th century, but the western world was build during the 19th century. --RafaelG 17:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)