The Age of Interconnection: A Global History of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

A panoramic view of global history from the end of World War Two to the dawn of the new millennium, and a portrait of an age of unprecedented transformation. The defining quality of these decades involved the rising and unstoppable flow of people, goods, capital, and ideas across boundaries, continents, and oceans, creating prosperity in some parts of the world, while also reinforcing nationalism and xenophobia.

Format: Hardback
Length: 688 pages
Publication date: 05 January 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

A sweeping exploration of global history from the aftermath of World War II to the dawn of the new millennium, The Age of Interconnection offers a panoramic view of a time of unprecedented transformation. In this ambitious and groundbreaking work, Jonathan Sperber guides readers through six decades of global history, from the end of World War II to the onset of the new millennium.

As Sperber's immersive and propulsive book reveals, the defining characteristic of these decades was the rising and unstoppable flow of people, goods, capital, and ideas across boundaries, continents, and oceans, creating prosperity in some parts of the world while causing destitution in others, and reinforcing nationalism and xenophobia. It was an age of transformation in every realm of human existence: from relations with nature to relations between and among nations, superpowers to emerging states; from the forms of production to the foundations of religious faith. These changes took place on an unprecedentedly global scale. The world both developed and contracted. Most importantly, it became interconnected.

To make sense of this complex era, Sperber illuminates the central trends and crucial developments across a wide variety of topics, adopting a chronology that divides the era into three distinct periods: the postwar, from 1945 through 1966, which retained many elements of the period of world wars; the upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, when the pillars of the postwar world were undermined; and the two decades at the end of the millennium, when new structures were developed, structures that form the basis of today's world, even as the iconic World Trade Center was reduced to rubble by terrorism.

The Age of Interconnection is a clear-eyed portrait of an age of blinding change. It is a testament to the power of human connection and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. It is a reminder that our world is shaped by the choices we make and the actions we take, and that we have the power to create a better future for ourselves and for generations to come.

Weight: 1122g
Dimension: 240 x 162 x 65 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780190918958