ABSTRACT

The Inter-War Crisis is a concise yet analytical overview of the rapidly-changing world between 1918 and 1939, covering the political, economic and social instability that resulted from the First World War and the eventual descent towards the fresh upheaval of the Second World War.

Revised throughout and containing a new range of illustrations, this third edition covers topics such as the Russian Revolution, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the concepts of the ‘end of civilization‘ and the decline of the West, cultural and scientific responses to an age of anxiety and fear, and the ways in which dictatorship came to replace democracy across so much of Europe. Global in focus, it offers thematic discussions, close analysis of a range of case studies and a clear over-arching narrative structure that guides the reader from the close of one war to the beginning of the next.

Also including a selection of over thirty primary source documents, maps, a chronology of events, a glossary of key terms, a Who’s Who of important figures and an extensive and updated guide to further reading, this book is an essential introduction for students of the inter-war period.

part |2 pages

Part 1 The background

chapter 1|10 pages

What kind of crisis?

part |2 pages

Part 2 Analysis

chapter 2|12 pages

Revolution and counter-revolution

chapter 3|14 pages

A crisis of modernization

chapter 4|12 pages

The ‘end of civilization’

chapter 6|14 pages

Democracy and dictatorship

chapter 7|17 pages

The international crisis

part |2 pages

Part 3 Assessment

chapter 8|8 pages

The challenge of progress

part |2 pages

Part 4 Documents

chapter 1|1 pages

The disillusionment of war

chapter 3|1 pages

Stemming ‘racial degeneration’

chapter 4|1 pages

Trotsky’s ‘permanent revolution’

chapter 5|1 pages

The revolutionary threat

chapter 6|1 pages

The revenge of the right

chapter 7|1 pages

The legacy of 1917

chapter 8|1 pages

A bright new tomorrow

chapter 13|1 pages

Rejecting the department store

chapter 14|1 pages

A ‘Jew-free’ Vienna

chapter 15|1 pages

The suicide of civilization

chapter 17|1 pages

The population problem

chapter 18|1 pages

The German sterilization law

chapter 19|1 pages

The over-sexed girl

chapter 21|1 pages

The psychological dilemma of modern man

chapter 22|1 pages

Descent into barbarism

chapter 23|1 pages

The ‘golden age’ of free trade

chapter 24|1 pages

Living with inflation

chapter 25|1 pages

Time on their hands

chapter 26|1 pages

The ‘collective’ economy

chapter 27|1 pages

Lenin rejects democracy

chapter 28|1 pages

French politics in crisis, 6 February 1934

chapter 29|1 pages

Mussolini defines fascism

chapter 30|1 pages

The democratic crisis

chapter 31|2 pages

Popular enthusiasm for Hitler

chapter 32|1 pages

Building the Soviet superpower

chapter 33|1 pages

Japan, the ‘have-not’ state

chapter 34|1 pages

Hitler’s idea of ‘living space’

chapter 35|1 pages

Face to face with Hitler

chapter 36|1 pages

The destruction of Guernica

chapter 37|2 pages

The clash of ideals