Author:
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400832616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
How and why did Europe spawn dictatorships and violence in the first half of the twentieth century, and then, after 1945 in the west and after 1989 in the east, create successful civilian societies? In this book, Volker Berghahn explains the rise and fall of the men of violence whose wars and civil wars twice devastated large areas of the European continent and Russia--until, after World War II, Europe adopted a liberal capitalist model of society that had first emerged in the United States, and the beginnings of which the Europeans had experienced in the mid-1920s. Berghahn begins by looking at how the violence perpetrated in Europe's colonial empires boomeranged into Europe, contributing to the millions of casualties on the battlefields of World War I. Next he considers the civil wars of the 1920s and the renewed rise of militarism and violence in the wake of the Great Crash of 1929. The second wave of even more massive violence crested in total war from 1939 to 1945 that killed more civilians than soldiers, and this time included the industrialized murder of millions of innocent men, women, and children in the Holocaust. However, as Berghahn concludes, the alternative vision of organizing a modern industrial society on a civilian basis--in which people peacefully consume mass-produced goods rather than being 'consumed' by mass-produced weapons--had never disappeared. With the United States emerging as the hegemonic power of the West, it was this model that finally prevailed in Western Europe after 1945 and after the end of the Cold War in Eastern Europe as well.
Europe in the Era of Two World Wars
Author:
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400832616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
How and why did Europe spawn dictatorships and violence in the first half of the twentieth century, and then, after 1945 in the west and after 1989 in the east, create successful civilian societies? In this book, Volker Berghahn explains the rise and fall of the men of violence whose wars and civil wars twice devastated large areas of the European continent and Russia--until, after World War II, Europe adopted a liberal capitalist model of society that had first emerged in the United States, and the beginnings of which the Europeans had experienced in the mid-1920s. Berghahn begins by looking at how the violence perpetrated in Europe's colonial empires boomeranged into Europe, contributing to the millions of casualties on the battlefields of World War I. Next he considers the civil wars of the 1920s and the renewed rise of militarism and violence in the wake of the Great Crash of 1929. The second wave of even more massive violence crested in total war from 1939 to 1945 that killed more civilians than soldiers, and this time included the industrialized murder of millions of innocent men, women, and children in the Holocaust. However, as Berghahn concludes, the alternative vision of organizing a modern industrial society on a civilian basis--in which people peacefully consume mass-produced goods rather than being 'consumed' by mass-produced weapons--had never disappeared. With the United States emerging as the hegemonic power of the West, it was this model that finally prevailed in Western Europe after 1945 and after the end of the Cold War in Eastern Europe as well.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400832616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
How and why did Europe spawn dictatorships and violence in the first half of the twentieth century, and then, after 1945 in the west and after 1989 in the east, create successful civilian societies? In this book, Volker Berghahn explains the rise and fall of the men of violence whose wars and civil wars twice devastated large areas of the European continent and Russia--until, after World War II, Europe adopted a liberal capitalist model of society that had first emerged in the United States, and the beginnings of which the Europeans had experienced in the mid-1920s. Berghahn begins by looking at how the violence perpetrated in Europe's colonial empires boomeranged into Europe, contributing to the millions of casualties on the battlefields of World War I. Next he considers the civil wars of the 1920s and the renewed rise of militarism and violence in the wake of the Great Crash of 1929. The second wave of even more massive violence crested in total war from 1939 to 1945 that killed more civilians than soldiers, and this time included the industrialized murder of millions of innocent men, women, and children in the Holocaust. However, as Berghahn concludes, the alternative vision of organizing a modern industrial society on a civilian basis--in which people peacefully consume mass-produced goods rather than being 'consumed' by mass-produced weapons--had never disappeared. With the United States emerging as the hegemonic power of the West, it was this model that finally prevailed in Western Europe after 1945 and after the end of the Cold War in Eastern Europe as well.
The Legacies of Two World Wars
Author: Lothar Kettenacker
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857452231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was done mainly, if one is to believe US policy at the time, to liberate the people of Iraq from an oppressive dictator. However, the many protests in London, New York, and other cities imply that the policy of “making the world safe for democracy” was not shared by millions of people in many Western countries. Thinking about this controversy inspired the present volume, which takes a closer look at how society responded to the outbreaks and conclusions of the First and Second World Wars. In order to examine this relationship between the conduct of wars and public opinion, leading scholars trace the moods and attitudes of the people of four Western countries (Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy) before, during and after the crucial moments of the two major conflicts of the twentieth century. Focusing less on politics and more on how people experienced the wars, this volume shows how the distinction between enthusiasm for war and concern about its consequences is rarely clear-cut.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857452231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was done mainly, if one is to believe US policy at the time, to liberate the people of Iraq from an oppressive dictator. However, the many protests in London, New York, and other cities imply that the policy of “making the world safe for democracy” was not shared by millions of people in many Western countries. Thinking about this controversy inspired the present volume, which takes a closer look at how society responded to the outbreaks and conclusions of the First and Second World Wars. In order to examine this relationship between the conduct of wars and public opinion, leading scholars trace the moods and attitudes of the people of four Western countries (Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy) before, during and after the crucial moments of the two major conflicts of the twentieth century. Focusing less on politics and more on how people experienced the wars, this volume shows how the distinction between enthusiasm for war and concern about its consequences is rarely clear-cut.
Wars and Betweenness
Author: Bojan Aleksov
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633863368
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
The region between the Baltic and the Black Sea was marked by a set of crises and conflicts in the 1920s and 1930s, demonstrating the diplomatic, military, economic or cultural engagement of France, Germany, Russia, Britain, Italy and Japan in this highly volatile region, and critically damaging the fragile post-Versailles political arrangement. The editors, in naming this region as "Middle Europe" seek to revive the symbolic geography of the time and accentuate its position, situated between Big Powers and two World Wars. The ten case studies in this book combine traditional diplomatic history with a broader emphasis on the geopolitical aspects of Big-Power rivalry to understand the interwar period. The essays claim that the European Big Powers played a key role in regional affairs by keeping the local conflicts and national movements under control and by exploiting the region's natural resources and military dependencies, while at the same time strengthening their prestige through cultural penetration and the cultivation of client networks. The authors, however, want to avoid the simplistic view that the Big Powers fully dominated the lesser players on the European stage. The relationship was indeed hierarchical, but the essays also reveal how the "small states" manipulated Big-Power disagreements, highlighting the limits of the latters' leverage throughout the 1920s and the 1930s.
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633863368
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
The region between the Baltic and the Black Sea was marked by a set of crises and conflicts in the 1920s and 1930s, demonstrating the diplomatic, military, economic or cultural engagement of France, Germany, Russia, Britain, Italy and Japan in this highly volatile region, and critically damaging the fragile post-Versailles political arrangement. The editors, in naming this region as "Middle Europe" seek to revive the symbolic geography of the time and accentuate its position, situated between Big Powers and two World Wars. The ten case studies in this book combine traditional diplomatic history with a broader emphasis on the geopolitical aspects of Big-Power rivalry to understand the interwar period. The essays claim that the European Big Powers played a key role in regional affairs by keeping the local conflicts and national movements under control and by exploiting the region's natural resources and military dependencies, while at the same time strengthening their prestige through cultural penetration and the cultivation of client networks. The authors, however, want to avoid the simplistic view that the Big Powers fully dominated the lesser players on the European stage. The relationship was indeed hierarchical, but the essays also reveal how the "small states" manipulated Big-Power disagreements, highlighting the limits of the latters' leverage throughout the 1920s and the 1930s.
Savage Continent
Author: Keith Lowe
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250015049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize "A superb and immensely important book."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post The Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years... The end of World War II in Europe is remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, but the reality was quite different. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed, and more than thirty million people had been killed in the war. The institutions that we now take for granted—such as police, media, transport, and local and national government—were either entirely absent or compromised. Crime rates soared, economies collapsed, and whole populations hovered on the brink of starvation. In Savage Continent, Keith Lowe describes a continent where individual Germans and collaborators were rounded up and summarily executed, where concentration camps were reopened, and violent anti-Semitism was reborn. In some of the monstrous acts of ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen, tens of millions were expelled from their ancestral homelands. Savage Continent is the story of post–war Europe, from the close of the war right to the establishment of an uneasy stability at the end of the 1940s. Based principally on primary sources from a dozen countries, Savage Continent is the chronicle of a world gone mad, the standard history of post–World War II Europe for years to come.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250015049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize "A superb and immensely important book."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post The Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years... The end of World War II in Europe is remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, but the reality was quite different. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed, and more than thirty million people had been killed in the war. The institutions that we now take for granted—such as police, media, transport, and local and national government—were either entirely absent or compromised. Crime rates soared, economies collapsed, and whole populations hovered on the brink of starvation. In Savage Continent, Keith Lowe describes a continent where individual Germans and collaborators were rounded up and summarily executed, where concentration camps were reopened, and violent anti-Semitism was reborn. In some of the monstrous acts of ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen, tens of millions were expelled from their ancestral homelands. Savage Continent is the story of post–war Europe, from the close of the war right to the establishment of an uneasy stability at the end of the 1940s. Based principally on primary sources from a dozen countries, Savage Continent is the chronicle of a world gone mad, the standard history of post–World War II Europe for years to come.
War and Childhood in the Era of the Two World Wars
Author: Mischa Honeck
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108478530
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
This innovative book reveals children's experiences and how they became victims and actors during the twentieth century's biggest conflicts.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108478530
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
This innovative book reveals children's experiences and how they became victims and actors during the twentieth century's biggest conflicts.
Europe on Trial
Author: Istvan Deak
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429973500
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Europe on Trial explores the history of collaboration, retribution, and resistance during World War II. These three themes are examined through the experiences of people and countries under German occupation, as well as Soviet, Italian, and other military rule. Those under foreign rule faced innumerable moral and ethical dilemmas, including the question of whether to cooperate with their occupiers, try to survive the war without any political involvement, or risk their lives by becoming resisters. Many chose all three, depending on wartime conditions. Following the brutal war, the author discusses the purges of real or alleged war criminals and collaborators, through various acts of violence, deportations, and judicial proceedings at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal as well as in thousands of local courts. Europe on Trial helps us to understand the many moral consequences both during and immediately following World War II.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429973500
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Europe on Trial explores the history of collaboration, retribution, and resistance during World War II. These three themes are examined through the experiences of people and countries under German occupation, as well as Soviet, Italian, and other military rule. Those under foreign rule faced innumerable moral and ethical dilemmas, including the question of whether to cooperate with their occupiers, try to survive the war without any political involvement, or risk their lives by becoming resisters. Many chose all three, depending on wartime conditions. Following the brutal war, the author discusses the purges of real or alleged war criminals and collaborators, through various acts of violence, deportations, and judicial proceedings at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal as well as in thousands of local courts. Europe on Trial helps us to understand the many moral consequences both during and immediately following World War II.
A Social History of Europe, 1945-2000
Author: Hartmut Kaelble
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1845456432
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Since 1945 Europe has experienced many periods of turmoil and conflict and as many moments of peace and integration: from the devastation felt in the aftermath of World War II to the recovery in the 1950s and 1960s; to the new challenges in the 1970s and 1980s when neoliberal policies led to fundamental social and economic changes, marked by the effects of the oil shock and widespread unemployment; and then 1989 and after when the existing world order experienced new convulsions. In this brilliant and comprehensive work, the author, one of the best known social historians of Europe, discusses a wide range of subjects, not shying away from controversial topics: family structure, work, consumption, values, migration, inequality, elites, civil society, social movements, media, welfare state, education, and urban policies. He focuses on the fundamental changes European societies underwent in the second half of the twentieth century but also explores what divides Europeans, what unites them, and what sets them apart from the rest of the world. This major historical work will be an important and highly sought-after addition for library collections as well as an important volume for course adoptions.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1845456432
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Since 1945 Europe has experienced many periods of turmoil and conflict and as many moments of peace and integration: from the devastation felt in the aftermath of World War II to the recovery in the 1950s and 1960s; to the new challenges in the 1970s and 1980s when neoliberal policies led to fundamental social and economic changes, marked by the effects of the oil shock and widespread unemployment; and then 1989 and after when the existing world order experienced new convulsions. In this brilliant and comprehensive work, the author, one of the best known social historians of Europe, discusses a wide range of subjects, not shying away from controversial topics: family structure, work, consumption, values, migration, inequality, elites, civil society, social movements, media, welfare state, education, and urban policies. He focuses on the fundamental changes European societies underwent in the second half of the twentieth century but also explores what divides Europeans, what unites them, and what sets them apart from the rest of the world. This major historical work will be an important and highly sought-after addition for library collections as well as an important volume for course adoptions.
The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945
Author: Nicholas Doumanis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199695660
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673
Book Description
The period spanning the two World Wars was unquestionably the most catastrophic in Europe's history. Despite such undeniably progressive developments as the radical expansion of women's suffrage and rising health standards, the era was dominated by political violence and chronic instability. Its symbols were Verdun, Guernica, and Auschwitz. By the end of this dark period, tens of millions of Europeans had been killed and more still had been displaced and permanently traumatized. If the nineteenth century gave Europeans cause to regard the future with a sense of optimism, the early twentieth century had them anticipating the destruction of civilization. The fact that so many revolutions, regime changes, dictatorships, mass killings, and civil wars took place within such a compressed time frame suggests that Europe experienced a general crisis. The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945 reconsiders the most significant features of this calamitous age from a transnational perspective. It demonstrates the degree to which national experiences were intertwined with those of other nations, and how each crisis was implicated in wider regional, continental, and global developments. Readers will find innovative and stimulating chapters on various political, social, and economic subjects by some of the leading scholars working on modern European history today.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199695660
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673
Book Description
The period spanning the two World Wars was unquestionably the most catastrophic in Europe's history. Despite such undeniably progressive developments as the radical expansion of women's suffrage and rising health standards, the era was dominated by political violence and chronic instability. Its symbols were Verdun, Guernica, and Auschwitz. By the end of this dark period, tens of millions of Europeans had been killed and more still had been displaced and permanently traumatized. If the nineteenth century gave Europeans cause to regard the future with a sense of optimism, the early twentieth century had them anticipating the destruction of civilization. The fact that so many revolutions, regime changes, dictatorships, mass killings, and civil wars took place within such a compressed time frame suggests that Europe experienced a general crisis. The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945 reconsiders the most significant features of this calamitous age from a transnational perspective. It demonstrates the degree to which national experiences were intertwined with those of other nations, and how each crisis was implicated in wider regional, continental, and global developments. Readers will find innovative and stimulating chapters on various political, social, and economic subjects by some of the leading scholars working on modern European history today.
The Second World War
Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 0316084077
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 848
Book Description
A masterful and comprehensive chronicle of World War II, by internationally bestselling historian Antony Beevor. Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of WWII. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, the Second World War. In this searing narrative that takes us from Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to V-J day on August 14, 1945 and the war's aftermath, Beevor describes the conflict and its global reach -- one that included every major power. The result is a dramatic and breathtaking single-volume history that provides a remarkably intimate account of the war that, more than any other, still commands attention and an audience. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's grand and provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on this complex, tragic, and endlessly fascinating period in world history, and confirms once more that he is a military historian of the first rank.
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 0316084077
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 848
Book Description
A masterful and comprehensive chronicle of World War II, by internationally bestselling historian Antony Beevor. Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of WWII. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, the Second World War. In this searing narrative that takes us from Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to V-J day on August 14, 1945 and the war's aftermath, Beevor describes the conflict and its global reach -- one that included every major power. The result is a dramatic and breathtaking single-volume history that provides a remarkably intimate account of the war that, more than any other, still commands attention and an audience. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's grand and provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on this complex, tragic, and endlessly fascinating period in world history, and confirms once more that he is a military historian of the first rank.
Behind the Lines
Author: Margaret R. Higonnet
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300044294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
Essays analyze the two world wars in respect to gender politics and reassesses the differences between men and women in relation to war
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300044294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
Essays analyze the two world wars in respect to gender politics and reassesses the differences between men and women in relation to war