Europe in the Era of Two World Wars

Volker R. Berghahn is Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books on modern German and European history and on European-American relations in the twentieth century including, most recently, "America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe" (Princeton).

• INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: Europe before World War I, 1895-1914 7 Industrial Economy and Civil Society 7 The Curse of Ethnonationalism and Colonialism 15 Premonitions of Total War 26 CHAPTER TWO: Violence Unleashed, 1914-1923 33 Mobilization, 1914 33 The Totalization of Warfare 39 The Wars after the Great War 47 CHAPTER THREE: Recivilization and Its Failure, 1924-1935 58 The Short Dream of Prosperity for All 58 Militarism 70 The Stalinist Experiment in Violence 75 CHAPTER FOUR: Violence without Bounds, 1935-1945 82 Total Mobilization in Peacetime 82 Terroristic Warfare 99 Visions of a New European Order 113 CONCLUSIONS 130 Notes 143 Selected Bibliography 153 Chronology 155 Index 159

"This is a most thought-provoking and penetrating study, based on superb scholarship and written by a masterly mind."--Stanley Hoffman, Foreign Affairs "[Berghahn] writes essentially and succinctly about what he characterizes as the 'men of violence' and the horrors they wrought upon the world. Focusing on German leaders and military and their conduct in wars and civil strife, Berghahn argues powerfully for German responsibility in WWI as well as WWII."--Choice "In an insightful discussion, [Berghahn] makes direct connections between German brutalities in Africa (against the Hereros, for example) and aggressive, social Darwinist modes of thought that produced the Schlieffen Plan and other indications of the increasing European propensity to resort to violence... Berghahn's spare and gripping account of these events incorporates much recent historical literature."--Hunt Toohey, Independent Review "An outstanding ... thoughtful, highly stimulating ... [and] convincing essay about the long epoch of violence during the past century."--Hartmut Kaelble, H-Soz-u-Kult "Berghahn's book is well worth reading. It will also function well in university courses on modern Europe as a short, well-argued and provocative supplement to traditional textbooks. Being very clearly plotted as the narrative of a struggle between good and evil, it might even serve to illustrate a few of Hayden White's points about the use of literary conventions by historians."--Nils Arne Sorensen, European History Quarterly