Europe Between Democracy and Dictatorship - (Blackwell History of Europe) by Conan Fischer (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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

From the Back Cover

In Europe between Democracy and Dictatorship, Conan Fischer offers a captivating analysis of Europe's turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century. After many largely peaceful years in which Europe enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, the continent was plunged into two world wars in quick succession and a traumatic series of national revolutionary upheavals. It was a time of repeated economic crisis and even fundamental famine; an era seemingly defined by Bolshevism, Fascism and Nazism, and stained by the mass murder of continental Europe's Jews.

Fischer traces and evaluates the history of these great events in concise and accessible chapters. He reviews key debates and theories and provides readers with a systematic introduction to the wider literature. He also argues that parallel to Europe's desolate record of upheaval and war, more benign developments were creating the unmistakable and essentially positive foundations of contemporary European life, whether in terms of everyday experience or in the first steps along the road to today's European Union.

Review Quotes

"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)

About the Author

Conan Fischer is Professorial Fellow in the School of History, University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is the author of Stormtroopers: a Social, Economic and Ideological Analysis 1929-35 (1983), The German Communists and the Rise of Nazism (1991), The Rise of the Nazis (1995 & 2002) and The Ruhr Crisis 1923-1924 (2003) He is editor of The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Classes in Weimar Germany (1996) and co-editor of After the Versailles Treaty: Enforcement, Compliance, Contested Identities (with Alan Sharp, 2008). He is currently researching the history of Franco-German relations during the Great Depression (1929-32).