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.