Europe Contested analyses the failures and achievements of an astonishing era of economic advance and political chaos, from the First World War up to the present day.
Beginning with the Great War, the book goes on to examine connections between the self-destruction of liberal democracy, market economics, and the international political and security framework in the interwar period. It then considers the mass politics that surrounded the glorification of new-style leaders Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler before moving on to explore the ways in which the interwar legacy was superseded post-1945. James examines the deceptive appearance of stability brought by a new convergence in European politics that focused around the market and the principle of liberal democracy, and demonstrates how the impact of globalization and openness to migration and to destabilizing financial capital flows has eroded traditional politics and ended the stable left-right polarization at the core of the postwar order. This new edition has been thoroughly updated throughout, demonstrating also how an era of crisis is challenging Europe and its values.
Supported by boxed case studies, illustrations, chronologies and an annotated bibliography, and focusing on Europe as a whole, it is the perfect introduction for students of Modern European History.
Introduction
Chronology
1 The twentieth century in an iron cage: modernization and rationalization
2 War and peace: Lenin and Wilson
3 The 1920s: precarious democracy
4 Europe and the world of the Depression
5 Peace and war: the failure of the international order in the 1930s
6 The Second World War
7 The reconstruction of Europe, Western Style: making the 1950s
8 Yalta and communism: the reconstruction of Europe, Eastern style, from the 1940s to the 1970s
9 A golden age: the 1960s
10 The limits to growthmanship: the 1970s
11 Right step: the 1980s
12 Malta and communism: 1989 and the restoration of Europe
13 The return to Europe: the new politics and the end of the Cold War
14 Europe in a new world order
Appendix 1: populations of major European Countries
Appendix 2: short biographies
Appendix 3: further reading
Index
