ABSTRACT
Some of the relevant facts of the twentieth century are the people, industrialization, and world politics. There will be absolute or proportional declines of population in some parts of Europe, in the European part of the Soviet Union, and in European overseas settlements such as the United States and Australia. Since 1700, the locus of major economic advance shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and Northwestern Europe. As we near the year 2000 it seems possible that the locus of industrialization is shifting once more, this time to the Pacific. Following the withdrawal of European powers from their overseas colonies, America and Russia have been competing for spheres of influence in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The chapter also explores the ramifications in our understanding of twentieth-century social change.
