The 20th century irreversibly changed people's understanding of knowledge, space, time, the cosmos, the psyche, society, progress, and art. It was a profoundly strange era in which distinguishing a visionary from a madman was not easy. However, without understanding it, we are unlikely to comprehend what is happening now.

Historian and journalist John Higgs invites us to look at the past century through the lens of the history of ideas and the gradual infiltration of the concept of relativity into all spheres of life. Why did a century of discord and disunity end with universal connectivity? What can science fiction and pop culture tell us about its philosophy and psychology?

How did scientists and artists, without any collusion, arrive at the same images? And finally, what should we expect from the 21st century if the previous one was filled with wars and tragedies?