Paul Johnson

Now available in a revised and updated edition, the continuing national bestseller (nearly 200,000 copies sold) about the events, ideas, and personalities of the seven decades since the end of World War I. Originally published in 1983 and named one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, this edition contains a new final chapter, and the text has been revised and updated…. Incisive, stimulating and frequently controversial, Modern Times combines fact, anecdote, incident and portrait in a major full-scale analysis of how the modern age came into being and where it is heading.

Do the private practices of intellectuals match the standard of their public principles? How great is their respect for truth? What is their attitude to money? How do they treat their spouses and children - legitimate and illegitimate? How loyal are they to their friends? Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sartre,…