Thousands of fascinating entries concerning the 20th century information on: dictators and despots, from Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin to Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein; heroes, saints and martyrs, including Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Simone Weil, Mohandas Gandhi and Maximilliam Kolbe; poets and writers, from Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig; significant literary and intellectual works, including Elliot's "Wasteland", Joyce's "Ulysses", Orwell's "Animal Farm" and "1984", Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago", Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" and Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams"; intellectual ideas and movements, such as logical positivism philosophy, surrealism (art and literature, cubism (art), feminism literature, politics and sociology, serialism (music) and postmodernism. Other areas covered by the encyclopedia include musical composition, from the mighty masterpieces of Mahler to the esoteric musings of John Cage, specific works that have altered music and history such as Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" and important performers including Jacqueline Du Pre and Maria Callas; art and architecture; popular culture; war and conflict; diplomacy; international disasters; politics and law; aviation and space travel.