Britain as a global power in the twentieth century

This chapter examines the extent to which Britain's status as a global power in the twentieth century was underpinned by the existence of its empire. It suggests that, in a military sense, empire represented an uncertain resource. While the mobilization of the empire in the two world wars was ultimately crucial to British victory, its latent power in the years leading to those conflicts was poorly appreciated, not least by UK policy‐makers themselves. As such, it had limited value as a deterrent to Britain's enemies. Furthermore, the process of mobilizing the empire for war placed an almost intolerable strain on the fragile structures of imperial control. Britain's continuing aspirations to play the role of a global power following post‐war decolonization reflect the extent to which its overseas interests had always transcended the formal boundaries of empire. Meanwhile the Anglo‐American alliance provided Britain with a degree of security that its empire had never offered.

The Early Twentieth-Century Warming in the Arctic—A Possible Mechanism

The huge warming of the Arctic that started in the early 1920s and lasted for almost two decades is one of the most spectacular climate events of the twentieth century. During the peak period 1930–40, the annually averaged temperature anomaly for the area 60°–90°N amounted to some 1.7°C. Whether this event is an example of an internal climate mode or is externally forced, such as by enhanced solar effects, is presently under debate. This study suggests that natural variability is a likely cause, with reduced sea ice cover being crucial for the warming. A robust sea ice–air temperature relationship was demonstrated by a set of four simulations with the atmospheric ECHAM model forced with observed SST and sea ice concentrations. An analysis of the spatial characteristics of the observed early twentieth-century surface air temperature anomaly revealed that it was associated with similar sea ice variations. Further investigation of the variability of Arctic surface temperature and sea ice cover was performed by analyzing data from a coupled ocean–atmosphere model. By analyzing climate anomalies in the model that are similar to those that occurred in the early twentieth century, it was found that the simulated temperature increase in the Arctic was related to enhanced wind-driven oceanic inflow into the Barents Sea with an associated sea ice retreat. The magnitude of the inflow is linked to the strength of westerlies into the Barents Sea. This study proposes a mechanism sustaining the enhanced westerly winds by a cyclonic atmospheric circulation in the Barents Sea region created by a strong surface heat flux over the ice-free areas. Observational data suggest a similar series of events during the early twentieth-century Arctic warming, including increasing westerly winds between Spitsbergen and Norway, reduced sea ice, and enhanced cyclonic circulation over the Barents Sea. At the same time, the North Atlantic Oscillation was weakening.

Architectural enthusiasm: visiting buildings with The Twentieth Century Society

In this paper we put forward the concept of architectural enthusiasm—a collective passion and shared emotional affiliation for buildings and architecture. Through this concept and empirical material based on participation in the architectural tours of The Twentieth Century Society (a UK-based architectural conservation group), we contribute to recent work on the built environment and geographies of architecture in three ways: first, we reinforce the importance of emotion to people’s engagements with buildings, emphasising the shared and practised nature of these engagements; second, we highlight the role of architectural enthusiasts as agents with the potential to shape and transform the built environment; and third, we make connections between (seemingly) disparate engagements with buildings through a continuum of practice incorporating urbex, local history, architectural practice and training, and mass architectural tourism. Unveiling these continuities has important implications for future research into the built environment, highlighting the need to take emotion seriously in all sorts of professional as well as enthusiastic encounters with buildings, and unsettling the categories of amateur and expert within architectural practices.

Creation of the WATCH Forcing Data and Its Use to Assess Global and Regional Reference Crop Evaporation over Land during the Twentieth Century

The Water and Global Change (WATCH) project evaluation of the terrestrial water cycle involves using land surface models and general hydrological models to assess hydrologically important variables including evaporation, soil moisture, and runoff. Such models require meteorological forcing data, and this paper describes the creation of the WATCH Forcing Data for 1958–2001 based on the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) and for 1901–57 based on reordered reanalysis data. It also discusses and analyses modelindependent estimates of reference crop evaporation. Global average annual cumulative reference crop evaporation was selected as a widely adopted measure of potential evapotranspiration. It exhibits no significant trend from 1979 to 2001 although there are significant long-term increases in global average vapor pressure deficit and concurrent significant decreases in global average net radiation and wind speed. The near-constant global average of annual reference crop evaporation in the late twentieth century masks significant decreases in some regions (e.g., the Murray–Darling basin) with significant increases in others.

Contributions to twentieth century total column ozone change from halocarbons, tropospheric ozone precursors, and climate change

We investigate ozone changes from preindustrial times to the present using a chemistry-climate model. The influence of changes in physical climate, ozone-depleting substances, N2O, and tropospheric ozone precursors is estimated using equilibrium simulations with these different factors set at either preindustrial or present-day values. When these effects are combined, the entire decrease in total column ozone from preindustrial to present day is very small (–1.8 DU) in the global annual average, though with significant decreases in total column ozone over large parts of the Southern Hemisphere during austral spring and widespread increases in column ozone over the Northern Hemisphere during boreal summer. A significant contribution to the total ozone column change is the increase in lower stratospheric ozone associated with the increase in ozone precursors (5.9 DU). Also noteworthy is the near cancellation of the global average climate change effect on ozone (3.5 DU) by the increase in N2O (–3.9 DU).

Anti-Slavic imagery in German radical nationalist discourse at the turn of the twentieth century: a prelude to Nazi ideology?

By applying methods of cognitive metaphor theory, Jaworska examines metaphorical scenarios employed in the discourse of anti-Slavism, which featured prominently in radical nationalist propaganda in Germany at the turn of the twentieth century. She does so by analysing metaphorical expressions used to refer to the Polish population living in the eastern provinces of Prussia, in the so-called Ostmark. Her article is based on an analysis of a range of pamphlets and newspaper articles written by some of the leading figures of two nationalist organizations: the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband) and the Eastern Marches Society(Ostmarkenverein). The main research questions it addresses are: What kind of metaphoric scenarios were used to depict the Polish minority, and to what extent were the metaphorical patterns of anti-Slavic imagery similar to those employed in the antisemitic propaganda of the Nazi era? Is there a discursive continuity between the radical nationalism of imperial Germany and the National Socialism of the Third Reich at the level of metaphorical scenarios? Ultimately, Jaworska attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying radical and essentially racist attitudes.

Twentieth-century global-mean sea-level rise: is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?

Confidence in projections of global-mean sea level rise (GMSLR) depends on an ability to account for GMSLR during the twentieth century. There are contributions from ocean thermal expansion, mass loss from glaciers and ice sheets, groundwater extraction, and reservoir impoundment. Progress has been made toward solving the “enigma” of twentieth-century GMSLR, which is that the observed GMSLR has previously been found to exceed the sum of estimated contributions, especially for the earlier decades. The authors propose the following: thermal expansion simulated by climate models may previously have been underestimated because of their not including volcanic forcing in their control state; the rate of glacier mass loss was larger than previously estimated and was not smaller in the first half than in the second half of the century; the Greenland ice sheet could have made a positive contribution throughout the century; and groundwater depletion and reservoir impoundment, which are of opposite sign, may have been approximately equal in magnitude. It is possible to reconstruct the time series of GMSLR from the quantified contributions, apart from a constant residual term, which is small enough to be explained as a long-term contribution from the Antarctic ice sheet. The reconstructions account for the observation that the rate of GMSLR was not much larger during the last 50 years than during the twentieth century as a whole, despite the increasing anthropogenic forcing. Semiempirical methods for projecting GMSLR depend on the existence of a relationship between global climate change and the rate of GMSLR, but the implication of the authors' closure of the budget is that such a relationship is weak or absent during the twentieth century.

Why did democracy become the preferred political regime only in the twentieth century?

A Democracia Tornou-Se a Forma Preferida de Governo Apenas no Século Vinte. a Busca por Motivos Racionais para Entendermos a Razão não é Suficiente. o Autor Procura por um Fato Histórico Novo que Tenha Levado a Essa Mudança de Preferência, Baseado Sucessivamente na Revolução Capitalista e na Perda Gradual do Medo da Expropriação Pela Burguesia. a Revolução Capitalista que Mudou o Modo de Apropriação do Excedente, da Violência para o Mercado, é a Primeira Condição Necessária. Representa Também a Transição do Estado Absoluto para o Estado Liberal. a Segunda Condição é o Desaparecimento do Medo da Expropriação, Permitindo a Transição do Regime Liberal para o Regime Liberal-Democrático. Depois de Estabelecer Estas Duas Condições, ou Estes Dois Fatos Históricos Novos, o Regime Democrático Tornou-Se Rational Choice para Todas as Classes. para os Capitalistas, Democracia é Agora a Forma de Governo que Melhor Assegura o Direito À Propriedade e Aos Contratos. para os Trabalhadores, é a Forma de Governo que Melhor Assegura o Aumento de Salários com Lucros

The economic development of Latin America in the twentieth century

Includes bibliography

Returning to an external debate: the terms of trade for commodities in the twentieth century

Includes bibliography

The terms of trade for commodities in the twentieth century

Includes bibliography