Europe between Democracy and Dictatorship: 1900 - 1945

InEurope between Democracy and Dictatorship, Conan Fischeroffers a captivating analysis of Europe s turbulent historyduring the first half of the twentieth century. After many largelypeaceful years in which Europe enjoyed unprecedented prosperity,the continent was plunged into two world wars in quick successionand a traumatic series of national revolutionary upheavals. It wasa time of repeated economic crisis and even fundamental famine; anera seemingly defined by Bolshevism, Fascism and Nazism, andstained by the mass murder of continental Europe s Jews.Fischer traces and evaluates the history of these great eventsin concise and accessible chapters. He reviews key debates andtheories and provides readers with a systematic introduction to thewider literature. He also argues that parallel to Europe sdesolate record of upheaval and war, more benign developments werecreating the unmistakable and essentially positive foundations ofcontemporary European life, whether in terms of everyday experienceor in the first steps along the road to today s EuropeanUnion.Biographie de l'auteurConan Fischer is Professorial Fellow in the School of History, University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is the author ofStormtroopers: 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) andThe Ruhr Crisis 1923–1924 (2003) He is editor ofThe Rise of National Socialism and the Working Classes in Weimar Germany (1996) and co–editor ofAfter 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).