A History of the World From the 20th to the 21st Century

principles of constitutional parliamentary and, eventually, democratic government. The ordinary voter could scarcely be aroused ...

was but a drop in the ocean of widespread poverty and backwardness. Despite the undoubted pro- gress, the gap between the north ...

from the failure of the recent violence in Milan. Giolitti, who became prime minister for the second time in 1903, saw the invol ...

was not prepared to accept revolutionary violence, yet repression, he recognised, would only lead to unnecessary bloodshed, crea ...

In October 1911 the Italians, after declaring war on Turkey, landed troops in Tripoli. A month later Giolitti announced the anne ...

At the height of its imperial greatness, there is dis- cernible in the Edwardian Britain of the early twentieth century a new mo ...

were set on an inevitable course of rapid decline. There were successful ‘new’ industries of the ‘second’ industrial revolution, ...

parliament of 1906 was the election of fifty-three Labour members, though that number owed much to an electoral arrangement with ...

The 400 million people of the British Empire had reached different stages of advancement to independence by the close of the nin ...

effort in two world wars was to show. Coopera- tion between the Dominions and the mother country, however, was voluntary, based ...

begun, were largely strategic: the road to India which ran through the Ottoman Empire, Persia and landlocked mountainous Afghani ...

Berlin for this purpose early in 1912 and Winston Churchill, first lord of the admiralty, called for a ‘naval holiday’ in 1913 – ...

the world. Of course, Germany was an excellent market for British goods, something that was taken for granted. Above all, the Ge ...

The First World War doomed the efforts of these two empires to reform their institutions, mod- ernise and solve tensions within. ...

endemic throughout Europe, but most virulent in Russia. Liberal and progressive European opinion was shocked and offended by the ...

autocrat, yet, when driven by hunger and depriva- tion, resorting to violence and destruction. Those peasants recently forced by ...

was allowed to fail; the nationalities and the con- flict of classes would tear Russia apart. Autocracy was the only answer to l ...

cancelled (as from 1907). This made it possible for a peasant to become the legal proprietor of the land. But as most of the lan ...

Nicholas II was quite unequal to the Herculean task of ruling Russia. He was more and more dominated by his wife, Empress Alexan ...

At first the Balkan states went to war against Turkey. The Balkan League of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro attacked the ...