ABSTRACT

The twentieth century requires different treatment from the past systems we have been

examining. This is our century. Much of it is familiar to us through direct experience and

living memory, and the sequence of events is too well known to need recapitulation. But

it is too recent, and its outcome and consequences too unpredictable, for us yet to be able

to look at it in adequate perspective. We cannot see the wood for the trees. We are

intellectually and emotionally children of our era, with commitments and loyalties which

come from our involvement in the struggles of the time. Since we cannot view our own

century with the same detachment as the Mauryan Empire or the European wars of

religion, we need to make a special mental effort to apply to it the same analysis as we

have to the past: retaining our convictions but recognizing that others, and especially

future generations, will question them and be puzzled by the importance which we attach

to them.