20th Century History

I've been reading History of the Twentieth Century lately, and it is a long book. Apparently it's the condensing of three books into one, but at 1,000 pages, it's still running about 10 pages per year of history for a century. It feels a lot like reading weekly summaries on politics from The Economist in book form.

My main takeaway so far is that tension, conflict, and bloodshed have been happening regularly for a long time. After 100 years we tend to only remember bigger more consequential events, but there were many more along the way that are remembered less, but still were highly consequential in their own right for the people nearby affected.

The Bible describes spring as “the time when kings go out to war” (2 Samuel 11:1). The regularity, almost of an annual nature, of hard conflict and its eternal results is nothing new and has a long history.

This makes it all the more important that people have made peace with God. While we have been blessed with peace on our shores for many years, we never know when our time is up or when conflict may come our way.