Define each decade since 1900 in one word.

[mathew101281]

I'm American so my point of view reflects that.
1900-10: Old
To me this was the last hurrah for the old mass agrarian culture in the west. the west had been colonized City's were getting bigger, but their still pockets of places that still looked like the wild west. Globally all the major landmasses had been cut up by colonialism and there was very little new land to explore and exploit.

The 1910s: Revolutionary
The mainstreaming of major technologies like the car and electricity, radically changed life for humanity going forward. Think about how fast cars fully replaced horses. Horses were really the only form of personal transportation humans had known up to that point( maybe the bicycle), and within a decade it had been almost completely replaced by the car. Electricity had a similar effect.

1920's: political
The Communist revolution happened in 1917, and it sent a ripple effect across the world. In many ways, it instigated the rise of Fascism (along with political malpractice by the allied powers after WW1). In the states, the passing of prohibition created a very raucous, corrupt, and sometimes violent reality in America's big cities. To me, this is the decade of massive political mistakes, masquerading as a big party, at least in America, and a time of great political upheaval in Europe.

1930's: Depression
Hard financial times struck the world, and war became an increasing menace.

1940's: Nationalistic.
Everybody was a flag-waver, even the bad guys. War and wartime propaganda saturated everything.

1950's: Paranoid

Fear of the bomb and "the other," defined this decade. It made society very reactionary. I've always felt human society becomes really conservative when people are scared.

1960's: Change
Civil rights Woman's lib protests in the streets. radical changes in music, violence in politics, and globally in the world.

1970's: Party
I feel that the 70s was very similar to the 20's in that the world seemed to mask a lot of real problems in a veneer of celebration. Clothing was outlandish and fun, but there always seemed to be an undercurrent of anger and disillusionment to a lot of pop culture of the day, at least till Star Wars came out and tried to make everything fun again. But even after that, there was still an undercurrent of darkness in a lot of movies back then, that would slowly wane as the decades went on. Part of the reason for that feeling was political. Watergate had America really down, oil was expensive, and Big cities like New York were the hell holes of crime and decay that would inspire creatives like Martin Scorsese and Frank Miller.

1980's: Big
the 80's took everything about the 1970s and blew it up to a cartoonish level. Big hair big clothing extravagant lifestyle. People were either a Yuppie flush with cash or pretending to be. The clothing was sparkly. Sure, there was a lot of serious stuff going on, (AIDS, Iran Contra), but a lot of it seemed to be drowned out by a lot of the bigness of the decade.

1990's: Edgy

I've noticed that in the West, times of relative peace and prosperity, often accompanied by transgressive pop-culture, Joe Quesada, once said, he found it interesting that golden age superheroes, were hyper optimistic, and bright at a time when the world looked pretty bleak (The Depression, and then WW2) but the Marvel characters which were created in the relatively peaceful early 60's were relatively more transgressive and abrasive. This was also true in the 90's. The Cold War was over, but the War on Terror hadn't begun. So what ceased pop culture. Edginess. Edgy Comics, Edgy videogames, Edgy Wrestling. Everything had an X on it because it was Xtreme (spelled without an "e" because bad spelling is cool). Even the cartoons were edgy. Rewatching old 90's cartoons it was amazing what they could get away with on a Saturday morning cartoon. Trash tv like Jerry Springer was also common.

I'm not sure about the 2000's and 2010's
I could easily say "terror" for the 2000's and "change" for the 2010's but I feel those words really don't capture the whole feeling of those decades.

[Scott Taylor]

Sure, this sounds fun!

1900s - Bygone
1910s - War
1920s - Shame
1930s - Nightmare
1940s - Victory
1950s - Oblivious
1960s - Revolutions
1970s - Throwback
1980s - Change
1990s - Boom
2000s - Fear
2010s - Division

Edit - I was being unfair to the 1980s, so changed that

[Revolutionary_Jack]

1900 - Ignorance
1910 - Cataclysm
1920 - Delirium
1930 - Defeat
1940 - Violence
1950 - Paranoia
1960 - Reckoning
1970 - Convulsion
1980 - Disillusionment
1990 - Disingenuousness
2000 - Blowback
2010 - Despair

[Riv86672]

1900s - adiaphoristic
1910s - extradictionary
1920s - filipendulous
1930s - kedogenous
1940s - pertinacious
1950s - gammon
1960s - misoneism
1970s - skein
1980s - insouciant
1990s - obdormition
2000s - agowilt
2010s - polylemma

[The no face guy]

1900's - Antiquity
1910's - Massacre
1920's - Decadence
1930's - Poverty
1940's - Genocide
1950's - McCarthyism
1960's - Cuba
1970's - Marijuana
1980's - Greed
1990's - Grunge
2000's - Millennials
2010's - Schizophrenic

[foxley]

1900s - Optimism
1910s - Slaughter
1920s - Vivacity
1930s - Austerity
1940s - Blitzkrieg
1950s - Paranoia
1960s - Revolution
1970s - Flux
1980s - Overindulgence
1990s - Selfish
2000s - Terror
2010s - Topsy-turvy

[Tami]

1900s - Migration
1910s - Anti-imperialism
1920s - Change
1930s - Decline
1940s - Conflict
1950s - Paranoia
1960s - Rebellious
1970s - Stagnation
1980s - Realignment
1990s - Globalism
2000s - Confusion
2010s - Testing

[OopsIdiditagain]

1900s: - colonialism
1910s: - war
1920s: - Red-scare
1930s: - facism
1940s: - genocide
1950s: - boom
1960s: - change
1970s: - neocolonialism
1980s: - consumerism
1990s: - rebellious
2000s: - recession
2010s: - globalism

[DrNewGod]

1900s: Ambition
1910s: Assertion
1920s: Abandon
1930s: Dismay
1940s: Conflagration
1950s: Ordering
1960s: Awakening
1970s: Disillusioning
1980s: Regressing
1990s: Complacency
2000s: Enraging
2010s: Splintering

[PaulBullion]

Disappointing.