20th CENTURY — IMPORTANCE OF THE LEGACY

Abstract

The purport of this paper is to highlight the development tendencies and characteris-tics of the 20th century, which was decisive in forming the foundations of the present world. The narrative underlines the fact that it was an age of wars, ideological rivalry between dem-ocratic capitalism versus fascism and then communism, nationalisms and insurgencies for freedom and social change; time when international domination of the United States consoli-dated and when enormous social, economic, scientific and technological progress was made. But it was also a century of atrocities, often amounting to genocide —so alien to the twenti-eth-century image of the allegedly humanistic progress.