Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in our Time - Hardcover

Wasserstein, Bernard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198730748 ISBN 13: 9780198730743

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2007

Synopsis

The twentieth century in Europe witnessed some of the most brutish episodes in history. Yet it also saw incontestable improvements in the conditions of existence for most inhabitants of the continent - from rising living standards and dramatically increased life expectancy, to the virtual elimination of illiteracy, and the advance of women, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals to greater equality of respect and opportunity.

It was a century of barbarism and civilization, of cruelty and tenderness, of technological achievement and environmental spoliation, of imperial expansion and withdrawal, of authoritarian repression - and of individualism resurgent.

Covering everything from war and politics to social, cultural, and economic change, Barbarism and Civilization is by turns grim, humorous, surprising, and enlightening: a window on the century we have left behind and the earliest years of its troubled successor.

About this title

Review:

This book will almost certainly have a prominent place on the reading lists of courses on contemporary European History. (Christopher Reeves, Political Studies Review)

Wasserstein fashions a powerful narrative. (Sunday Independent.)

This is a huge synthesis marvelously researched, enriched with interesting pictures and a massive bibliography. (Sunday Independent. Milton Shain.)

A rich and broad ranging synthesis...Numerous plums enrich an always fluently written and insightful text that artfully conceals the vast amount of material that has been synthesized. (Mark Mazower. Times Literary Supplement.)

An admirable work of scholarly synthesis, which should be required reading... for anyone absorbed by the perplexing century we recently left behind. (Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Spectator)

eloquent, exhaustive and highly learned, this book is both a considerable achievement and an enlivening read...a highly competent and impressive book. (John Bew, Times Higher Education Supplement)

Thoughtful, fast-moving... exciting. As narrative histories of the last century go, this is as good as it gets. (Dominic Sandbrook, Literary Review)

By turns grim, humorous and surprising, this is a fascinating sweep of the century, covering war, politics, and social, cultural and economic change. (Belfast Telegraph)

About the Author:

Bernard Wasserstein was born in London in 1948 and educated at Balliol and Nuffield Colleges, Oxford. He has taught at Sheffield, Oxford, Glasgow, and Brandeis Universities and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2003 he has been Harriet and Ulrich Meyer Professor of History at the University of Chicago. His many previous books include Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939-1945 and The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln (which won the Golden Dagger Award for Non-Fiction from the Crime Writers' Association).

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0198730748
• ISBN 13: 9780198730743
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 928