History

1890
- modernization in countries as France, Germany, Japan and United States
- atmosphere of tension between these countries

1914
- the First World War: destruction of European self-confidence
- the end of European domination of the world
- after 1920 the U.S.A and Russia replaced France and Britain as the two great powers

1945
- the birth of the Welfare State as a consequence of economic depression in the 1870’s and 1880’s
- the Welfare State provided social help to the poor and free medical treatment to everyone

1917
- Marxism took power away from the middle classes
- It offered an optimistic view of the future to a generation that had lost the traditional values of liberalism and democracy

Science

1906
- Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity: the space and time are not separated

Literature

- there is not more the omniscient narrator, but there is the shift of point of view
- the reader gives judgements and the narrator gives no more moral judgements

Philosophy

- Man starts to think about time
- The time is no more linear