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20th Century America

The 20th was America's century. The United States in particular was able to play the role of industrial leader, international hero, aloof arbiter, Good Samaritan, and cultural giant. Of course, there were plenty of detractors, and snobs who didn't like the thought of an upstart nation of plebs gaining so much influence and power so quickly, but for the most part America and Americans were heralded as everyone's friend.

It was also the century of postmodernism, Darwinian indoctrination, modern "art", legalized abortion, rampant sexual license, etc., most of these finding their origin or substantial support in the U.S.A. American troops may have stopped the spread of Communism in South Korea and taken out the Third Reich, but they weren't able to stop the spread of anti-Christian sentiment or the deaths of more Christian martyrs than in all the previous centuries combined.

The British historian Paul Johnson says the Modern Era was born on March 29, 1919, when photographs of a solar eclipse proved Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. It's always a dangerous business inaugurating or ending historical periods with specific dates, but this much is clear—with the universal acceptance of Einstein's theory which followed, the moral and philosophical relativism with which the West had been experimenting for 300 years or so was finally codified as the standard approach to life, the universe and everything.

Einstein first published his theory in 1905. Shortly thereafter, the world began to fall apart. World War I was more than just a war—it was the conflict of outmoded nationalistic ideals with the new super-efficient war machines produced by the Industrial Revolution and technological progress. The Great Depression affected nations all over the world, the Lost Generation abandoned morality and surrendered to existential angst, and World War II stripped away the last illusions of innocence.

After that, there was no going back. Everything was questioned, everything was assumed to be in flux, there were no absolutes, no stationary standards, just the present and confusion and ambiguity. Existentialism told people to create their own meaning through self-actualization; postmodernism said there was no meaning, or that all meaning was relative and ultimately meaningless, merely a social construct designed to control people.

This is where human-centered thinking will ultimately get you, of course.When God is dismissed, hope is impossible, and the only response is either complete despair (existentialism) or complete nonsense (postmodernism). Add in the godless sexual preoccupations of Freudian theory, the culmination of Darwinian evolutionary naturalism, and the Enlightenment-inspired trust in human goodness and progress, and you've got a chaotic world.

Which is what we have now. After the Sexual Revolution, the secularization of public dialogue, and the watering-down of the Christian Gospel in so many churches, we're left with moral, religious and philosophical wreckage of the worst kind. Fortunately, we also have the true Gospel, which tells us that Christ has always and will always be the answer to evil and the only path to Truth and Salvation.

Despite the high death toll among Christians in the 20th century, the last 100 years also saw the most concerted missionary efforts yet undertaken, spanning every continent and nearly every people group. The Bible was translated into hundreds of languages (there are still thousands to go), the poor were cared for, and the Good News of the resurrected Lord was taken everywhere men and women could go.

Even the darkest centuries (and the 20th was certainly among them) aren't sufficient to overcome the work of Yahweh Almighty among His people and in the created world. Man has always rebelled; he will continue to do so. But God's faithful children will continue to spread His message and love and witness through the power of the Holy Spirit until Christ comes again and history is fulfilled in all the glory and majesty of the triumphant Godhead.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur.Read more of his reviews here.
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11 Days in December
by Stanley Weintraub
from New American Library
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
America's Longest War
by George C. Herring
2nd edition from McGraw-Hill
for 11th-Adult
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
American Passage
by Vincent J. Cannato
from Harper Perennial
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
And There Was Light
by Jacques Lusseyran
Third Edition from New World Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.95
Band of Brothers
by Stephen Ambrose, Foreword by Tom Hanks
25th anniversary from Simon and Schuster
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$18.99
Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge
by John S. D. Eisenhower
1st edition from Da Capo Press
for 10th-Adult
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
by Timothy Snyder
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Bonhoeffer
by Eric Metaxas, foreword by Timothy J. Keller
Revised and Updated from Thomas Nelson Publishers
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$24.99
Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life
Theologians on the Christian Life
by Stephen J. Nichols
from Crossway Books
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Boys in the Boat
by Daniel James Brown
Reprint from Penguin Putnam
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Boys of Summer
by Roger Kahn
from Harper Perennial
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Boys' Crusade
by Paul Fussell
from Modern Library
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Bridge to the Sun
by Gwen Terasaki
from Rock Creek Books
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$15.99 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Bridge Too Far
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Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk
from Back Bay Books
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1952 Pulitzer Prize Winner
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$18.99
Call to Conscience
by Martin Luther King, Jr., Edited by Clayborne Carson and Kris Shepard
from Grand Central Publishing
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$16.00
Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War
by Max Hastings
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Catch-22
by Joseph Heller
50th Anniversary Edition from Simon and Schuster
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$18.99
Churchill
by Paul Johnson
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$17.00
Churchill: Walking with Destiny
by Andrew Roberts
from Penguin Books
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Citizen Soldiers
by Stephen Ambrose
from Simon and Schuster
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
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$20.99
Coolidge
by Amity Shlaes
from Harper Perennial
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Cornelius Ryan World War II Trilogy
by Cornelius Ryan
from Simon and Schuster
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Defining Moment
by Jonathan Alter
from Simon and Schuster
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
Empire Rising
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Evidence Not Seen
by Darlene Deibler Rose
from HarperCollins
Biography for 9th-Adult
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$16.99
Fabulous Opal Whiteley
by Elbert Bede
from Binford & Mort Publishing
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Faithful Spy
by John Hendrix
from Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
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$18.99
Falcons of France
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from Little, Brown & Company
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FDR
by Jean Edward Smith
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Flags of Our Fathers
by James Bradley & Ron Powers
from Bantam Books
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in WWII: Pacific Theater (Location: HISA-20WW2P)
Flyboys
by James Bradley
2nd edition from Back Bay Books
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Girl in the Picture
by Denise Chong
from Charles Scribner's Sons
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in Vietnam War (1957-1975) (Location: HISA-20VIE)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
God's Samurai
by Gordon Prange, with Donald Goldstein & Katherine Dillon
from Potomoc Books
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$21.95
Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
from Penguin Classics
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Great Crash: 1929
by John Kenneth Galbraith
from Mariner Books
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in Great Depression (1929-1939) (Location: HISA-20GD)
$16.99
Great Escape
by Paul Brickhill
Reissue from W. W. Norton and Co.
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in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.95
Growing Up with Dick and Jane
by Carole Kismaric & Marvin Heiferman
from HarperCollins
for Adult
in Clearance: History & Geography (Location: ZCLE-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Growth of America
A Basic History of the United States Volume 4
by Clarence B. Carson
from American Textbook Committee
American History Reference for 9th-Adult
in Basic History of the United States (Location: HISCUR-US)
$19.00
Guadalcanal Diary
by Richard Tregaskis
Modern library pbk. ed from Modern Library
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in World War II (1939-1945) (Location: HISA-20WW2)
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer
from Sun Dial Press
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$17.00
Guns of August
by Barbara W. Tuchman
from Ballantine Books
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Guns of August
by Barbara W. Tuchman
from Ballantine Books
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$8.99
Guns of Navarone
by Alastair MacLean
Reprint from Sterling Publishing Co.
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Heyday
by Ben Wilson
from Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War
by Joseph Loconte
from Tyndale House
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$18.99
I Have a Dream / Letter from Birmingham Jail
by Martin Luther King, Jr.
from Perfection Learning
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Japan 1941
by Eri Hotta
from Vintage Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Labor's Untold Story
by Herbert M. Morais, Richard O. Boyer
3rd edition from United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of Amer
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$5.00 (2 in stock)
Lafayette Flying Corps Volume 1
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Leonaur, Ltd.
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$24.00
Lafayette Flying Corps Volume 2
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Leonaur, Ltd.
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$21.00
Land of the Morning
by Jean McAnlis McMurdie
from American Home-School Publishing
Biography for 10th-Adult
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Landscapes of Promise
Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books
by William G. Robbins, Foreword by William Cronon
from University of Washington Press
for Adult
in Pacific States (Location: HISV-PNW)
Last Battle
by Cornelius Ryan
Reprint from Simon and Schuster
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in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$20.00
Last Bookshop in London
by Madeline Martin
from Hanover Square Press
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in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.99
Long Valley
by John Steinbeck, Introduction and Notes by John H. Timmerman
from Penguin Books
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in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Longest Day
by Cornelius Ryan
from Touchstone
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$18.99
Lovely War
by Julie Berry
from Penguin Books
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$12.99
Matterhorn
by Karl Marlantes
Reprint from Hickory Grove Press
for Adult
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$17.00
Maus I: My Father Bleeds History
by Art Spiegelman
from Pantheon Books
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler, translated by Ralph Manheim
from Houghton Mifflin
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
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Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler, translated by Michael Ford
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Autobiography for 9th-Adult
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$29.95
Memoirs of the Second World War
by Winston S. Churchill, abridged by Denis Kelly
from HarperCollins
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$25.99
Monuments Men
by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter
from Center Street
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Never Give In
Leaders in Action Series
by Stephen Mansfield
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$19.99
New York to Nome
by Rick Steber, Photography by Sheldon Taylor
2007 Revised from Bonanza Publishing
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
Night
by Elie Wiesel
Revised from Hill & Wang
Autobiographies & Memoirs for 10th-Adult
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$12.00 $4.00 (11 in stock)
No Less Than Victory
by Jeff Shaara
1st edition from Ballantine Books
for Adult
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Omar Bradley: General at War
by Jim DeFelice
from Regnery Publishing, Inc.
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
On the Edge
by David D. Lee, David Horowitz, Peter N. Carroll
1st edition
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Outbreak of the First World War
Studies in European History
by David Stevenson
from Palgrave MacMillan
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$2.00 (1 in stock)
Paris 1919
by Margaret Macmillan
from Random House
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Righteous Cause
by Robert W. Cherny
from University of Oklahoma Press
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Rising Tide
by Jeff Shaara
from Ballantine Books
Historical Non-fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
River and the Gauntlet
by S. L. A. Marshall
from Time-Life Books
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
Sailor's Story
by Sam Glanzman, Foreward by Max Brooks, Introduction by Larry Hama, Afterword by Chuck Dixon
from Dover Publications
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$11.00 (1 in stock)
Sea of Glory - A Novel
by David Poling, Ken Wales
from B&H Books
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Sergeant York and the Great War
by Alvin C. York
from My Father's World
Autobiography for 7th-Adult
in World War I (1914-1919) (Location: HISA-20WW1)
$22.00
Shadow of His Wings
by Gereon Karl Goldmann
Revised from Ignatius Press
for 11th-Adult
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$18.95
Silent Night
by Stanley Weintraub
from Plume Books
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Silent Night
by Stanley Weintraub
from Simon and Brown
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Smoke and Ashes
from Holiday House
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Songs of My People
by Dudley M. Brooks & Eric Easter
from Little, Brown & Company
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
South in Modern America
by Dewey W. Grantham
from University of Arkansas Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Spirit of St. Louis
by Charles A. Lindbergh
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Biography for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Survival in Auschwitz
by Primo Levi
1st edition from Touchstone
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$14.00 $5.50 (2 in stock)
They Marched Into Sunlight
by David Maraniss
from Simon and Schuster
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien
from Mariner Books
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.95
Three Soldiers
by John Dos Passos
from Dover Publications
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in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$5.00
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
from Harper Perennial
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.99
Truman
by David McCullough
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand
Reprint from Random House
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$16.00 $5.00 (2 in stock)
Uncle Misha's Partisans
by Yuri Suhl
3rd edition
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$3.50 (1 in stock)
Vanishing Portland
Images of America
by Ray and Jeanna Bottenberg
from Arcadia Publishing
Photographic History for 6th-Adult
in Pacific States (Location: HISV-PNW)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Vietnam and America
by Marvin E. Gettleman
2nd edition from Grove Publishing
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Vietnam and America
by Marvin Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, H. Bruce Franklin
2nd edition from Hickory Grove Press
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Welfare State
A Basic History of the United States Volume 5
by Clarence B. Carson
from American Textbook Committee
American History Reference for 9th-Adult
in Basic History of the United States (Location: HISCUR-US)
$19.00
Westmoreland: The General who Lost Vietman
by Lewis Sorley
from Mariner Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Winston's War
by Max Hastings
from Vintage Books
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
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