The 20th century reflected all the extremes of human nature. It was scarred by some of history's most horrific examples of brutality and violence. But it also demonstrated humanity's idealism, inventiveness, and humanitarianism. It was the most technologically advanced century; it was also the most ideological and most destructive.

The 20th century witnessed unparalleled growth in knowledge, wealth, nutrition, and health. But it was also a century of unimaginable savagery. More than 150 million people perished in war, in concentration and re-education camps, in government-induced famines, or in genocides.

It was a century of mass production, mass consumption, mass media, and mass entertainment--but also of mass murder. It was a century marked by searing images of: trenches, the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the death camps.

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