Synopses & Reviews
When the world around you is crumbling and the end of civilization seems near, where do you turn? At the end of the First World War this was the crisis facing millions in the Western world.
In this second edition of his Seminar Studies volume, Richard Overy presents the history of a civilization scrambling to save itself from looming disaster which seemed as brutal and tragic as it was unavoidable.
By 1918 an entire generation across Europe felt themselves poised at a
crossroads: a choice between chaos and decline on the one hand or a whole new world political and economic order on the other. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, entire populations strove to choose order over chaos by turning to the political extremes of fascism and communism. When explanation was required, blame was laid at the doors of enfeebled democracy, or communist subversion or Jewish plots.
Despite the yearning for peace, war appeared inescapable - not simply a reaction to Hitler's rise to power, war was also seen by some as a welcome way out of a bankrupt and crisis-ridden age, a violent ending that would clear the stale air of the inter-war world.
Areas covered include:
- A new chapter exploring the intellectual, scientific and cultural response to an age of anxiety and fear
- The Russian Revolution and the Great Crash of 1929
- How dictatorship came to replace democracy
- The irresistible slide toward a second world war
Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He has authored 17 books on the Third Reich, the Second World War and air warfare these include:The Air War 1939-1945 (2nd ed, 2006), Why the Allies Won (2nd ed, 2006) andThe Dictators: Hitlers Germany and Stalins Russia (2004) which won both the Wolfson and the Hessell Tiltman Prizes for History in 2005.
Synopsis
A new edition of this popular, concise introduction to the inter-war period.
- The author is a major name in this area, and a much-respected authority on the subject
- This is the only book that covers the inter-war period in this way
- This book will be relevant to Modern Europe courses taught at most universities
- The previous edition sold very well
Synopsis
The inter-war years were, at the time, perceived to be years of crisis across the world. The First World War, the war to end all wars, had solved nothing and its legacy was a world full of unresolved disputes and manifest ambiguities.
Overy examines the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic crisis which struck at the very foundations of the capitalist world, and seeks to explain why dictatorships came to supplant democracy in Italy, Spain, Germany, the Baltic States and the Balkans, and why the world slid into war once more in 1939.
Synopsis
A new, revised edition of this popular, concise introduction to the inter-war period.
- Document sections illustrate key points and encourage students to read original sources
- A chronology provides an at-a-glance guide to key dates
- Whos Who section provides short bibliographies of major figures
- A guide to further reading ensures quality of students research
About the Author
Richard Overy is Professor in History at University of Exeter (previously Professor of Modern European History at Kings College, London). He has written widely on history of the Third Reich, the Second World War and the Soviet Union, including a number of critically acclaimed books such as
Russias War (1999), the best-seller
The Battle (2000), and
Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands (2002).
He was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize by the Society for Military History for a lifetimes contribution to military history. He is also a regular contributor to radio and television.
Table of Contents
Introduction to the series
Acknowledgements
Chronology
PART ONE: THE BACKGROUND
1. What Kind of Crisis?
PART TWO: ANALYSIS
2. Revolution and Counter-Revolution
The Russian Revolution
Exporting the Revolution
The failure of revolution
3. A Crisis of Modernisation
The challenge of modernity
The conservative revolt
4. The End of Civilisation
Decline of the West
Science and civilisation
Women, sex and moral decline
Psycho-Analysis and the Modern Malaise
War and civilisation
5. The Great Crash: Capitalism in Crisis
The causes of the Crash
The effects of the recession
The search for recovery
The end of capitalism?
6. Democracy and Dictatorship
The decline of democracy
The appeal of dictatorship
The New Order in Politics
7. The International Crisis
The unsettled peace
The world crisis
The slide to war
PART THREE: ASSESSMENT
8. The Challenge of Progress
PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS
Glossary
Whos Who
Bibliography
Index