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Europe between Democracy and Dictatorship
1900 - 1945

Conan Fischer (Author)

9780631215110, Wiley

Hardback, published 27 August 2010

408 pages
25.4 x 18 x 2.8 cm, 0.875 kg

“Conan Fischer has written one of the finest short surveys of early twentieth-century Europe that I know, and one that will prove worthwhile to beginning students and advanced scholars alike.”  (European History Quarterly, 1 January 2015)

"The book also contains a sufficient number of maps and illustrations, an important consideration from the point of view of students. In short, this is certain to become a standard text for the teaching of 20th-century European history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All undergraduate collections." (Choice, 1 September 2011)

Fischer offers a captivating analysis of Europe’s turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century, from the optimism at the turn of the century to the successive waves of destruction of the First and Second World Wars.

  • Written by a leading authority in this field, the book draws upon his areas of expertise
  • Reflects the most recent scholarship in this period of history
  • While laying stress on Europe's major powers and the seminal events of the earlier twentieth century, Fischer pays due attention to the smaller European countries from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and the Baltic to the Mediterranean
  • Extends beyond the political, sociological, and economic paradigms to include extensive references to the European cultural scene
  • Organized both as a broad chronology and thematically, in order to allow for historical insights and entry into the key debates and literature

List of Maps ix

List of Figures x

Foreword xi

1 The European Paradox 1

2 The Coming of War 7

2.1 A Balkans War 7

2.2 Why the War Need Not Have Spread 13

2.3 Why the War Spread 25

3 Fighting the War 40

3.1 The Opening Gambits: 1914 40

3.2 The Elusive Victory: 1915 47

3.3 The High Noon of Attrition: 1916 52

3.4 The Tipping Point: 1917 59

3.5 Defeat and Victory: 1918 66

4 Ending the War: Revolutions and Peacemaking 69

4.1 The Home Front in Wartime 69

4.2 Revolution in Russia 75

4.3 Revolution in Germany 90

4.4 The Legacy of War and the Treaty of Versailles 100

4.5 Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean 116

4.6 Western Upheavals 130

4.7 The Fascist Revolution in Italy 135

5 Revision and Recovery, 1919–1929 143

5.1 From Versailles to the Dawes Plan 143

5.2 From Locarno to the Young Plan 171

5.3 Economy and Society: A Faltering Recovery 180

5.4 A Contested Modernity 187

6 The High Noon of the Dictators 199

6.1 Economic Armageddon: The Great Depression in Europe 199

6.2 The Rise of the Nazis, 1919–1933 208

6.3 Hitler in Power, 1933–1939 221

6.4 Dictatorship beyond Germany 234

6.4.1 Challenges in the surviving democracies 235

6.4.2 Nationalists, Fascists, and Bolsheviks 248

7 The Return to War 271

7.1 From Global Disarmament to War: 1932–1939 271

7.2 The Reasons for War 278

7.3 From Poland to the Fall of France: September 1939–June 1940 286

7.4 From Vichy to Pearl Harbor: June 1940–December 1941 299

8 Europe Eclipsed 309

8.1 Competing Caesuras: 1940–1 or 1945? 309

8.2 Hitler’s War – from Triumph to Oblivion, 1941–1945 311

8.3 Holocaust 322

9 Europe: An Honorable Legacy? 327

Notes 331

Bibliography 358

Index 372

Subject Areas: History [HB]
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