13 - A Century of NGOs

Summary

What is the connection between the twentieth century and the American Century? How is the history of the present century linked to the history of the United States? To establish the relationship between world history and U.S. history, it is, of course, crucial to identify themes in both world history and U.S. history in the twentieth century and explore whether there may have been a connection between the two. For instance, it is possible to point to such themes as total war, revolution, and totalitarianism as among the major features of twentieth-century history and to discuss what they have to do with developments in U.S. history. Michael Sherry's In the Shadow of War (1996), to take an example, suggests that there was a congruence between the theme of total war globally and the construction of a war-oriented American society. Or, following Walter LaFeber and other historians, we may link American liberal capitalism to worldwide revolutionary movements in a dialectical relationship; in such a construction, the American Century would emerge as something of an antithesis to a major theme of twentieth-century world history. A third and widely accepted perspective has been to stress the tremendous growth in the world's agricultural and industrial output and in cross-national trade and investment, and to see these developments as linked to the growth of the U.S. economy.