Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: Times and Approaches
- 2 Enlightenment and Revolutions, 1763–1815
- 3 Nations and -Isms, 1815–1871
- 4 Natural Selection, 1871–1921
- 5 From Relativity to Totalitarianism, 1921–1945
- 6 Superpower, 1945–1968
- 7 Planet Earth, 1968–1991
- 8 Minutes to Midnight, 1991–
- Notes
- Index
5 - From Relativity to Totalitarianism, 1921–1945
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: Times and Approaches
- 2 Enlightenment and Revolutions, 1763–1815
- 3 Nations and -Isms, 1815–1871
- 4 Natural Selection, 1871–1921
- 5 From Relativity to Totalitarianism, 1921–1945
- 6 Superpower, 1945–1968
- 7 Planet Earth, 1968–1991
- 8 Minutes to Midnight, 1991–
- Notes
- Index
Summary
After the photographs taken of a solar eclipse verified Einstein's theory of relativity in 1919, articles on the subject immediately began to appear in the Times of London, the New York Times and other newspapers. Books discussing relativity by Arthur Eddington, James Jeans and Bertrand Russell soon entered the best-seller lists. Einstein himself deplored the application of the term in other branches of enquiry, including history, and to the human experience in general. However, J. D. Bernal aptly commented in 1969 that
the effect of Einstein's work, outside the narrow specialist fields where it can be applied, was one of general mystification. It was eagerly seized on by the disillusioned intellectuals after the First World War to help them in refusing to face realities. They only needed to use the word ‘relativity’ and say ‘Everything is relative’, or ‘It depends on what you mean’. Relativity formed the basis of the work of many popularizations of the mysteries of science.
Here, we will go with the popular flow, as we apply the term to developments from 1921 to 1939 in general. Undoubtedly, European ‘disillusioned intellectuals’ could no longer accept the coherence of Europe as accepted by Gibbon and Burke in the eighteenth century and others since, while their American counterparts of the ‘lost generation’ no longer possessed their prewar certainties either.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Minutes to MidnightHistory and the Anthropocene Era from 1763, pp. 65 - 84Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011