The Permanent Book of the 20th Century: Eye-Witness Accounts of the Moments That Shaped Our Century - Softcover

Most of the century-making moments selected by the editor pertain to wars, from the Boer War to the Gulf War, but some excerpts concern famous cultural events such as the riot that nearly ensued from the first public performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring or the early concerts of the young Elvis. History often becomes immediate when unmediated by a historian, and the palpable fear of a battlefield is evident in numerous dispatches from the Somme, Dunkirk, Northern Ireland, or the Falklands. These places indicate the preponderance of Britain-related pieces; the remainder mostly concern American headaches, like Korea and Vietnam. For readers fed up with war and assassinations (the latter furnished by witnesses to attacks on Franz Ferdinand, Hitler, the Kennedys, and Ford), sports offer relief, as Lewis has picked out accounts of the exploits of Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, and Jack Nicklaus. As episodic as this collection seems, it's worth getting, and cheaply at that, for the browsing library patron. Gilbert Taylor