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TWENTIETH CENTURY UNLIMITED by Bruce- Ed Bliven

TWENTIETH CENTURY UNLIMITED

By

Pub Date: Oct. 11th, 1950
Publisher: Lippincott

The editor introduces this round-robin of surveys from the vantage point of the first fifty years of the 20th century, with a ""prospect vile"" summation of the decline from early optimism to despair, of the shocks to a new era's complacency, of the elements of insecurity and disillusion, and with a Cassandra-like attitude for the future. But his contributors, whose articles are followed by brief biographical notes, manage on the whole to present a somewhat brighter backward -- and forward -- look. Elmer Davis reviews plans for world government -- and criticizes them; Svirsky correlates the atom in war and, what it could be if allowed, in peace; Clark examines medical progress; Malcolm Cowley's chapter is on the writer, Clurman's on entertainment; Kilpatrick writes on progress in education, Cowgill on food, Nathan on business, Kluckhorn on manners and morals, Murray on trade unionism, Thompson on population; and there are other chapters on art, music, cities, science and politics. Experienced in their fields, the authors of these reports offer a rather firmer ground for hope than the introduction might seem to promise.