The Ruthless Lengthiness of the Short 20th Century

Abstract

The Ruthless Lengthiness of the Short 20th Century 1989 seemed to be the par excellence point of rupture in 20th century history. Nowadays, however, it has become clear that it was only one element of the complex set of transformations that has its roots in pre-World War I circumstances. It is also more and more clear that the 20th century has not really ended yet – the events are rolling on before our eyes in a less and less predictable way out of the impetus of the seemingly buried 20th century. The paper analyses the main trends of 20th century history on the basis of the social teaching of the papal encyclical Centesimus annus.