American Century or Totalitarian Century?
Why Paul Johnson disputed Henry Luce’s verdict on an age.
Francis P. Sempa
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May 27, 2025
Perhaps twenty-five years into a new century is sufficient time to reflect on the previous one with more accuracy. Conventional wisdom, borrowing from Henry Luce, characterizes the twentieth century as the “American Century,” reflecting the rise of the United States as an economic, military, and geopolitical superpower and the spread of American culture throughout the world. But it would be more accurate to describe the previous century as the “Totalitarian Century” because of the ubiquity of the immense growth of the power of the state vis-à-vis the individual. And no writer explained that phenomenon with greater insight than the late British historian Paul Johnson in his marvelous book Modern Times.
Johnson, who made the intellectual journey from left to right in the 1960s and 1970s, was a remarkably prolific writer, a staunch Roman Catholic, and a keen interpreter of history. He edited the New Statesman from 1965 to 1970 and wrote both big and small books, including biographies of Socrates, Jesus Christ, John Paul II, Elizabeth I, Edward III, Mozart, Darwin, Picasso, Eisenhower, Churchill, Napoleon, and George Washington; assessments of creators, intellectuals, and heroes; histories of Ancient Egypt, Ireland, the Renaissance, Christianity, and the Jews; a massive history of art; and most relevant to this essay, The Birth of the Modern and Modern Times.
In The Birth of the Modern, Johnson surveyed the post-Napoleonic world, as the United States expanded to the west and south, and Andrew Jackson introduced populism into American politics; the Congress of Vienna and the Holy Alliance tried to bring geopolitical stability to Europe while simultaneously discouraging revolutionary movements; and the industrial revolution brought advances in travel and communications. Johnson summarized it as follows:
https://modernagejournal.com/american-century-or-totalitarian-century/251115/
