What are/will be the defining characteristics of the 20th Century in Retrospect?

[Valmy]

Eh, the three Musketeers is fairly well remembered.

Sorta but hundreds of other beloved 19th century literary characters are not.  Besides we still have to get to the 2040s for it to be 200 years since those characters were invented.

[Valmy]

Perhaps you did miss the stuff were people claimed the founders wanted the country to be a Christian nation.  Of course that is wrong, but a lot of people believe it.

Yeah they are debating the political and ideological legacy.  You know, the very stuff I said they remembered.

[crazy canuck]

We don't remember the 12th century as the age of windmills.  We remember it as as the age of Crusades.

We do not remember the Great Northern War, the War of Spanish Succession, the zillions of other horrible things that happened in the 18th century.  We remember the Enlightenment and all the technological and political changes that followed.  Because they actually impact us.

One thing you are forgetting is how very appealing the Nazis are as villians.

Yeah but the Indiana Jones movies wont have much relevance in 120 years.

Eh, the three Musketeers is fairly well remembered.

Not really.  My bet is a small number of people could accurately describe the plot twists in the book never mind the names of the three and of the young lad who plays the hero.  At best there is a misremembered distortion based on whichever movie a person might have seen and a chocolate bar.

[Valmy]

Damn now I want a chocolate bar.

[crazy canuck]

Damn now I want a chocolate bar.

lol

[DGuller]

Mmmm, chocolate. 

[Neil]

The golden age of warfare, which ended the golden age of civilization.

[Razgovory]

Eh, the three Musketeers is fairly well remembered.

Sorta but hundreds of other beloved 19th century literary characters are not.  Besides we still have to get to the 2040s for it to be 200 years since those characters were invented.

I thought he said 120 years.

[Eddie Teach]

Not really.  My bet is a small number of people could accurately describe the plot twists in the book never mind the names of the three and of the young lad who plays the hero.  At best there is a misremembered distortion based on whichever movie a person might have seen and a chocolate bar.

Film has superseded the written word. Unless there's a new and better technology that comes around, Spielberg's movie franchise will still be the definitive "Indiana Jones".

The character itself may fade to obscurity, but that's hardly a given. People still recognize Robin Hood, Hamlet, Hercules, Noah, etc.

[Josquius]

Globalisation, ideology becoming more important than nationalism, really good music.


Agreed that the Nazis are going nowhere, they are just the perfect villains. WW2 was the last proper war and so it shall remain, therefore it will always be well remembered... unless we wipe ourselves out of course.

[Malthus]

It's already been almost 70 years - we are more than 1/3 of the total time from the fall of the Nazis to your 120 years in the future from now. No lessening of interest in the Nazis yet.

I think you are wrong about that.  I see many fewer cultural references to WWII than before.  When you and I were growing up WWII was a theme in many movies and TV shows.  Now it barely registers.

Once the last of the WWII vets dies we will probably hear about WWII about as much as we hear about WWI - ie not that often.  Muslim Jihadists have taken over from Nazis as the bad guys of choice for popular culture.  Those of us who can have a heated debate about WWII are a dying breed.

Naturally it will not be as all-dominant as it was in the decades immediately after the war. However, I think you are wrong that it will fade into total insignificance in the popular mind.

Certain events resonate down the centuries, not just because they are significant in themselves, but because they make a good narrative - they contain images that captured the imagination at the time and continue to inspire and fascinate centuries later.

Take WW1 versus WW2. WW1 is arguably just as, if not more, significant in some ways - it undermined the long 19th century of european peace-through-colonial-dominance, it set the stage for and directly inspired WW2, its carnage was terrible - but as a narrative, it sucks. Its causes are unclear and debated by historians to this day, it lacks easily identifiable villians and heros, and the battles are perceived as essentially grinding slogs, and the war settled nothing and was fought over no points of essential principle, and lacked any great orators to invest it with meaning. In short, other than as an image of pity and horror, it lacks force as a historical narrative.

That's why (for example) you can still get heated debates over the American Civil War, but passions over the (later and larger) WW1 are more muted.

[Viking]

The debate about the origins of WWII are very much colored by the ideological conflict of the cold war. The spectrum goes from Hitler was Evil, to Fascism is Capitalism and thus Evil, to Fascism is Communism and thus Evil, to Fascism is Evil, to the natural expression of German National Interest to Churchill was Evil. Ok Pat Buchanans thesis of it's Churchill wot done it isn't exactly mainstream in any sense.

We can't do the history properly because the cold warriors and their ideologies are still among us.

[Jacob]

My guess is that the 20th century will be remembered for all the things that have made the world smaller - the logistics of the US army, the proliferation of airlines and mass tourism, the Internet including social networks, cell phones and smart phones, outsourcing as an economic phenomenon etc. How it will be seen, of course, depends on what comes after.

Politically I think it will be remembered for the devolution of the various colonial empires and the conflicts that brought, and for the rise of China (whether it continues it's trajectory or not). If something terrible happens to or in the US in the next 50-75 years, I'm sure the roots of that will be seen to be in the 20th century as well.

As for the Nazis, I agree with Malthus that they'll survive for a while in the popular memory.