The Yugoslav state of the interwar period was a child of the Great European War. Its borders were superimposed onto a topography of conflict and killing, for it housed many war veterans who had ...served or fought in opposing armies (those of the Central Powers and the Entente) during the war. These veterans had been adversaries but after 1918 became fellow subjects of a single state, yet in many cases they carried into peace the divisions of the war years. John Paul Newman tells their story, showing how the South Slav state was unable to escape out of the shadow cast by the First World War. Newman reveals how the deep fracture left by war cut across the fragile states of 'New Europe' in the interwar period, worsening their many political and social problems and bringing the region into a new conflict at the end of the interwar period.
In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, ...and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis,The Rise and Fall of American Growthchallenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated. Robert Gordon contends that the nation's productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government, and that we must find new solutions. A critical voice in the most pressing debates of our time,The Rise and Fall of American Growthis at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.
This collection of papers provides an authoritative introduction to the Great Depression as it affected the advanced countries in the 1930s. The contributions are by acknowledged experts in the field ...and cover in detail the experiences of Britain, Germany, and, of course, the United States while also seeing the depression as an international disaster. The crisis entailed the collapse of the international monetary system, sovereign default, and banking crises in many countries in the context of the most severe downturn in western economic history. The responses included protectionism, regulation, fiscal and monetary stimulus, and the New Deal. The relevance to current problems facing Europe and the United States is apparent. The essays are written at a level which will be comprehensible to advanced undergraduates in economics and history while also being a valuable source of reference for policy makers grappling with the current economic crisis. Knowing about the Great Depression should be part of every economist’s education. The book will be of interest to modern macroeconomists and students of interwar history alike and seeks to bring the results of modern research in economic history to a wide audience. The focus is not only on explaining how the Great Depression happened, but also on understanding what eventually led to the recovery from the crisis. A key feature is that every chapter has a full list of bibliographical references which can be a platform for further study.
In this magisterial narrative, Zara Steiner traces the twisted road to war that began with Hitler's assumption of power in Germany. Covering a wide geographical canvas, from America to the Far East, ...Steiner provides an indispensable reassessment of the most disputed events of these tumultuous years.
Charles Maier, one of the most prominent contemporary scholars of European history, publishedRecasting Bourgeois Europeas his first book in 1975. Based on extensive archival research, the book ...examines how European societies progressed from a moment of social vulnerability to one of political and economic stabilization.
Arguing that a common trajectory calls for a multi country analysis, Maier provides a comparative history of three European nations and argues that they did not simply return to a prewar status quo, but achieved a new balance of state authority and interest group representation. While most previous accounts presented the decade as a prelude to the Depression and dictatorships, Maier suggests that the stabilization of the 1920s, vulnerable as it was, foreshadowed the more enduring political stability achieved after World War II.
The immense and ambitious scope of this book, its ability to follow diverse histories in detail, and its effort to explain stabilization-and not just revolution or breakdown-have made it a classic of European history.
Between 1919 and 1920, the eastern territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were temporarily administered by the Civic Management of Eastern Territories, established by Józef ...Piłsudski. The residents of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania were to determine their future governance. Piłsudski placed the Civic Management outside the structures of the Polish government, while his opponents from the Polish nationalist wing wanted to suborn it to the government in Warsaw. Based on hitherto unknown archival documents, the author describes the reasons for the failure of Piłsudski’s federation idea, both on the Polish side, as well as errors by Belarusian leaders and the policy of the Lithuanian state.
The European Economy between the Wars, (OUP, 1997) has become the definitive economic history of Europe in the inter-war period. Placing the Great Depression of 1929-33 and the associated financial ...crisis at the center of the narrative, the authors comprehensively examined the lead-up to and consequences of the depression and recovery. Peter Temin and Gianni Toniolo (their former co-author, Charles H. Feinstein, has died) now expand their scope to include the entire world economy, and have created a new edition: The World Economy between the Wars. New material focuses on the structure of the world economy in the 1920s, including a special focus on the United States, Japan, and Latin America. In addition, chapters that discuss the post-depression recovery now cover The New Deal and recovery in general in the United States and Japan. This new edition is a necessary update, and invaluable resource for those who desire an overview of the inter-war area beyond the usual discussion of the 1929 stock market crash. The book's broad geographic coverage, as well as its clarity and chronological execution, will appeal to students of economic history, as well as those academics in other fields whose research involves the inter-war period. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780195307559/toc.html
The 1941 Axis invasion of Yugoslavia initially left the German occupiers with a pacified Serbian heartland willing to cooperate in return for relatively mild treatment. Soon, however, the outbreak of ...resistance shattered Serbia's seeming tranquility, turning the country into a battlefield and an area of bitter civil war. Deftly merging political and social history, Serbia under the Swastika looks at the interactions between Germany's occupation policies, the various forces of resistance and collaboration, and the civilian population. Alexander Prusin reveals a German occupying force at war with itself. Pragmatists intent on maintaining a sedate Serbia increasingly gave way to Nazified agencies obsessed with implementing the expansionist racial vision of the Third Reich. As Prusin shows, the increasing reliance on terror catalyzed conflict between the nationalist Chetniks, communist Partisans, and the collaborationist government. Prusin unwraps the winding system of expediency that at times led the factions to support one-another against the Germans--even as they fought a ferocious internecine civil war to determine the future of Yugoslavia.
War in Peace Gerwarth, Robert; Horne, John
09/2012
eBook
The First World War did not end in November 1918. In Russia and Eastern Europe it finished up to a year earlier, and both there and elsewhere in Europe it triggered conflicts that lasted until 1923. ...Paramilitary formations were prominent in this continuation of the war. They had some features of formal military organizations but were used in opposition to the regular military as an instrument of revolution or as an adjunct or substitute for military forces when these were unable by themselves to put down a revolution (whether class or national). Paramilitary violence thus arose in different contexts. It was an important aspect of the violence unleashed by class revolution in Russia. It structured the counter-revolution in Central and Eastern Europe, including Finland and Italy, which reacted against a mythic version of Bolshevik class violence in the name of order and authority. It also shaped the struggles over borders and ethnicity in the new states that replaced the multi-national empires of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey. It was prominent on all sides in the wars for Irish independence. In many cases, paramilitary violence was charged with political significance and acquired a long-lasting symbolism and influence. This volume explores the differences and similarities between these various kinds of paramilitary violence within one volume for the first time. It thereby contributes to our understanding of the difficult transitions from war to peace. It also helps to re-situate the Great War in a longer-term context and to explain its enduring impact.
