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Critical Summary of Dark Continent (Ch. 1-4) (Revision)

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The opening four chapters of Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent provide a thoroughly informative analysis of early twentieth-century European governments that manages to be both balanced and provocative.  By recounting the social, political, and economic climates of the continent’s constituent nations leading up to, during, and between the two world wars, Mazower examines the conditions that led to the establishment of Europe’s dominant governmental systems.  The underlying thesis of these chapters is that democracy was not, as many historiographers have claimed, a foregone conclusion for Europe.  Conversely, Mazower argues that the competing fascist and socialist efforts also vying for primacy during the interwar period seemed at times to be equally if not more viable options.

The author paints a portrait of Europe as a continent fraught with the challenge of establishing proficient governments.  Beginning with the example of the Russian revolution, “liberalism’s first wartime triumph…and most frightening defeat,” Mazower categorically breaks down his period of interest, emphasizing a different perspective in each chapter (Mazower, 11).  Chapter one discusses political theory primarily in terms of Europe’s endeavors with constitutional liberalism.  Chapter two then focuses this scope to a geopolitical evaluation of the emergence of nationalism, flowing eloquently into chapter three’s analysis of the collective ideological shift toward socialist policies after World War I.  Chapter four concludes this quartet with a survey of the role of economics in this period, particularly with regard to the various successes and failures of capitalism in dealing with postwar reconstruction.

Although these chapters do not provide comprehensive historiographical information on the subject matter, Mazower’s four-fronted approach does create a unique portrait of Europe’s “inter-war experiment with democracy” that would be an excellent introduction for a historical neophyte or a refreshing new perspective for a seasoned professional.  The author expounds on his thesis by referencing a variety of historical sources (e.g. newspaper headlines, popular pamphlets, and relevant speeches) and contemporary commentaries (e.g. academic journal articles and historical books), including a number of translations from texts published in pertinent European languages (e.g. French, German, etc.) (Mazower, 5).  While this thorough research lends credibility and color to the prose, the distribution of elements such as direct quotations and statistics is somewhat unbalanced at times, making some passages difficult to absorb in just one reading and leaving others lacking in support.  Despite this, the end (in this case, the first four chapters as a whole) justifies the means; readers will lift their heads from these sometimes challenging pages stimulated and informed, but never bored.

Collectively, Dark Continent’s first four chapters establish Mazower’s distinctive interpretation of Europe’s attempts to settle into a stable state of government during the interwar period.  They also simultaneously set the stage for the discussion of later chronological events such as the phenomenon of Nazism and the establishment of peace after World War II in subsequent chapters.  Mazower’s synthesis of a large body of information into a tight and intellectually challenging work makes Dark Continent a worthwhile read appropriate for undergraduates, enthusiasts, and researchers alike.

Mazower’s Critical Summary (Chapter 1-4)

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Mark Mazower’s first four chapters in his book Dark Continent illustrate the hardships, issues, changes, and efforts that nations had to endure post the First World War. These chapters are full of information and facts creating a clear picture of the social, political, and cultural problems occurring in Europe in the 20th century. Although Mazower clearly states important information, his text does seem to be lengthy.

Each of the four chapters depicts a different issue that occurred post WWI when Europe was trying to rebuild itself. The first chapter talks about the different forms of government, focusing on democracy. He goes into much detail about Russia and the Russian revolution. The second chapter talks about the triumph of nationalism, empires coming into action, and minorities wanting to be protected. The third chapter goes into detail about social policies and government initiatives for the populations. And finally, the fourth chapter talks about the chaos in the economy and trying to rebuild it as well as the rise of communism and issues that arose with it.

Mazower backs up all of his statements with evidence that is directly relevant to his topics. For example, when Mazower talks about the League of Nations and minorities starting to rise as a political problem since they wanted to have more power. He states: “The victor powers at Versailles tried a different approach- keeping minorities where they were, and giving them protection in international law to make sure they were properly treated so that in time they would acquire a sense of national belonging” (Mazower, 42). Mazower’s statements are clear and in order.

Throughout the four chapters Mazower text is very informative, but also extremely lengthy. For example, in chapter three, when he describes the new social policy of declining birth rates and regulating populations. From page 76-84 is his whole discussion on the issue of cutting back on the birth rate.

Overall, I believe Mark Mazower’s book Dark Continent is a very good book and is perfectly suited for a European history class. Mazower provides a lot of detail context, which makes it easy for students, especially those who aren’t history majors, to read along and understand what is going on.

 

Critical Summary of Chapters 1-4 of Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent

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The first four chapters of Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent proves to be both an informative and transformative excerpt from this book. The chapters clear up all misconceptions that, through a series of certain calculated events, fascism somehow prevailed over democracy and therefore World War II was inevitable. However, it is discovered that  fascism was not a dark blip in Europe’s modern history. These chapters take a thematic approach, rather than a territorial approach, to explain exactly what was happening in both Western and Eastern Europe that led to both the development and breakdown of the democratic system and the rise of authoritarian powers.

This thematic approach may prove beneficial for a reader looking for common themes across several different countries. However, it may also be very confusing especially when Mazower is talking about England in one paragraph, and Hungary in the next. Similarly, some countries such as Russia and Germany are talked about far more than others. However, due to the nature of what was happening in those territories at the time, it can be understood that the events that took place there were talked about in more detail than others since the themes talked about, such as communism or nationalism, often happened in those countries at their core. Despite Mazower’s sometimes unbalanced way of looking at certain events, I found that the most beneficial part of this book was how the content was organized within the individual themes. For example, in Chapter 3, the topic of Eugenics comes up frequently, leading to a further discussion about racism. Mazower breaks this down with how each country dealt with it. Countries such as Poland, Hungary, Germany, and Greece were hard supporters of racist ideals such as anti-semitism. However, France and Britain saw both sides of the issue. He goes on to explain exactly what this meant for country policies and the Eugenics movement at this time.

The book does an especially great job at supporting it’s thesis’ with evidence from countless outside sources. They come from everywhere; constitutions, treaties, scholars from several different countries, journalists, critics, the leaders themselves, and so on. These sources collectively support the same ideas Mazower is trying to get through to us. The main theme of the book can always be found in his supporting arguments and sources. Democracy sometimes fails.

Dark Continent was written for an audience with a basic knowledge of European history. For this reason, I can absolutely recommend this book for undergraduates. These chapters, for me, took what I learned in secondary school and added details and context to the basic facts. The most important thing these chapters can do is explain the reasons for the area in history Europe wants to so desperately forget. “The reason why ‘fascisms’ come into being, is the political and social failure of liberal democracy’. (p. 17)

 

Critical Summary: Mazower, Chapters 1-4

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Beginning in the 1920s, the first four chapters of Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent describe a Europe traumatized by the First World War and caught in the thrall of a “bourgeois triumph”, heralded by the collapse of Europe’s great empires and their replacement with a “belt of democracies” stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans, each equipped with a constitution enumerating the liberal principles and rights of its citizens and leaders with the express aim of rationalizing governance and reducing politics to the management of institutions responsible for protecting and cultivating the welfare of ordinary citizens (4, 5). The first four chapters of Mazower’s book explain how European dreams of a pacified continent organized around a liberal democratic consensus collapsed in the face of widespread nationalism and economic crisis.

According to Mazower, the rise of national self-determination served as one of the first indications of the liberal democratic vision’s incapacity to maintain peace in Europe. “[The Treaty of] Versailles had given sixty million people a state of their own, but it turned another twenty-five million into minorities,” says Mazower. This development would then create a situation in which young nation states turned into cultural battlefields for majorities and minorities who refused to recognize each other as members of the same society. The creation of parliamentary democracies that favored strong legislatures over executive power could only aggravate this state of affairs (42). The Great Depression also drove Europeans to look for alternatives to liberal democracy. In the face of a worldwide economic crisis, economic nationalism –not free market capitalism- as adopted by Italy and the Third Reich, reduced unemployment and increased the people’s confidence in both the nation and the economy (115).

While these factors do provide adequate explanations for the failure of liberal democracy in Europe, Mazower proves most instructive when countering the misconception that fascism installed itself in Europe as an ideological aberration. Instead, it arose as a natural response to conditions and attitudes already well established in Europe at the time. In some cases, liberals even looked to fascism as a solution to economic and social troubles in their countries. Mazower makes his general survey of European history more accessible to undergraduates through succinct descriptions of specific situations that demonstrate his points. In one such case, Mazower turns to Italy as an example of the ideological fluidity between liberalism and fascism, explaining how Mussolini’s rise to power depended upon the support of three other political parties, including the Liberals, who, along with many members of the police, the Civil service, and the Court saw in fascism a last line of defense against socialism (14-15). The most disturbing portion of Mazower’s exploration of the fascistic elements germinating in Interwar Europe comes when Mazower reveals that liberals also shared a proclivity for eugenics and other theories of racial and social “hygiene”. We learn, for instance, that Weimar Germany, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries passed laws allowing for voluntary sterilization while implementing welfare programs to encourage “valuable” births over the expansion of “inferior” social groups (97).

Dark Continent will help any student searching for a concise analysis of fascism’s rise to power in Interwar Europe. Using a wide variety of secondary sources including academic journals based in the countries studied and primary sources including newspapers, pamphlets, and philosophical texts like Spengler’s Man and Technics, Mazower condenses an extraordinary amount of information normally unavailable to the average reader into a relatively small number of pages. This proves helpful for both students looking for a digest of secondary literature on the period and those searching for primary texts that reveal the concerns and interests of European thinkers writing at a particular stage in the Interwar period. Were I to make recommendations for the book’s improvement, I might suggest adding a description of how colonialism reinforced scientific racism and acted as the precursor to the genocidal tactics employed by fascists before and during World War II. However, this would surely exceed the scope of Mazower’s first four chapters. For more information on this particular subject, I recommend Sven Lindqvist’s Exterminate the Brutes.

 

Critical Summary of Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent

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Dark Continent by Mark Mazower is a historical text which covers the interwar period of Europe in a unique way. The first four chapters each focus on a different aspect of interwar Europe: the decline of democracy, nationalism and the effects it has on minority groups, health and social welfare as a means of control over populations, and the economies of nations. Mazower’s geopolitical coverage of Europe is large; he touches upon other countries in Europe that are usually neglected. Mazower’s interpretation of these historical events is also unique. He ties his interpretation into his themes of decline, fall, and social struggles in Europe to his thesis that Communism, Nazism, and democracy are more related than the reader may have originally thought. Through these views of the forms of governments and the main social struggle of the era, Mazower helps the reader gain a greater understanding of interwar Europe.

Starting with the first chapter and continuing through the next three, Mazower repeatedly points out the primary social struggle present throughout all countries and political parties: the strained relationship between the individual and the population as a whole. This is especially apparent in chapter three, when Mazower expands on the welfare state and social welfare. The welfare was not for the good of the individual; it was for the good of the country as a whole (89). This was constant throughout all countries in Europe. Another historian, Hoffman, reaffirms this idea in his historical writing, Cultivating the Masses. Hoffman, like Mazower, writes about a country’s concern for its productivity level, as it is directly correlated to the creation of social welfare for its people.

In Mazower’ interpretation of history, he views Communism as a favorable political solution. He touches upon the positives of Communism, explaining the basic goals of tackling corruption and social injustice. This interpretation sheds a positive light on Communism, which the reader may not have expected. He believes that the Soviet Union dealt with the issue of minorities and nationalism the best out of all of the governments. The Soviet Union was able to win over the minorities in the country by offering them involvement in the government (50). This united the country in a way in which no other country in Europe was able to do.

Mazower also examines the growth of Nazism in Europe, especially Germany. Nazism grew from citizens’ hatred of communism. This is apparent from many SS members’ own testimonies, including Hitler’s bodyguard, Rochus Misch. Like many members of the Nazi Party, he stated that he joined the SS because it was a “counterweight to the threat of the left,” and that it was for anti-communist goals. Yet Nazism was a form of imperialism that fits into history better than many believe it should (74). It did have a focus on social welfare; however that focus was then manipulated to benefit a minority of Germans, the Aryan race.

The most discussed form of government, which failed quite often, was democracy. In interwar Europe, there was not a universally agreed upon definition of democracy (5). This directly lead to the development of “democratic governments” which were no more than totalitarian or militant, non-parliamentary regimes. This can be seen in post-World War I Germany when a Constitutional provision, Article 48, was created in order to suspend the Constitution under specific conditions. This article was inevitably abused by then-Chancellor, Hitler, and although he was democratically elected, it is obvious that this abuse was not one of good faith and democratic idealism (33). From democracy, Nazism was born.  On the other hand, in other countries’ democracies, there was great distrust of the executive branch of government (19). Mazower does a good job of linking, comparing, and contrasting each individual European country’s form of democracy with the others.

From Mazower’s descriptions alone, the reader can see that these three forms of governments had similar goals. These three governments grew from and were related to each other; one cannot exist without the others. Each was constantly evolving, rising and falling with the changing climate of worldwide political trends. This leads to a greater understanding of the political structure, and conflict, in interwar Europe.

Overall, Mazower’s Dark Continent is a great text for an undergraduate history course. It intelligently follows the rise and fall of vastly different political ideologies in Europe, while also following the social struggles stemming from each. It does so without confusing the reader with irrelevant details, employing the use of brevity through text. It goes without saying that Mazower provides the reader with an extensive overview of the interwar period and successfully supports his thesis.

Mazower Critical Summary

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In Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent, Chapters one to four serve as a strong introduction to the cultural, political and economic problems that plagued inter-war Europe. Mazower argues that the growth of fascism, nationalism, bureaucracy, and new economic systems came as a counter-reaction to the failures of democracy and capitalism in post-World War I Europe. Arguing that because of the slow-pace of democracy and the economic failures that the Treaty of Versailles brought, revolutionaries mobilized the population and seized control of the governments, instituting radical reforms and changes in all aspects of life-social, political and economic which guided Europe to recover and another world war. While Mazower does do an excellent job of balancing a generalization of Europe and using specific examples; however, these examples tend to focus on Germany and Russia too much at certain points. While his use of these general outliers do help to show the extremes that Europe faced during these critical years, they do not add anything to his thematic arguments or prove his generalizations of the continent.

Dark Continent has the benefit of coming after the collapse of the Soviet Union which allowed Mazower and other historians access to documents previously unavailable. This helps to create the impact that Mazower’s work has on the general historical community. Mazower relies primarily on secondary accounts mainly from the 1970s and 1980s with some outliers in the 1960s and 1990s as well. His primary sources are limited, but when they are used, specific examples and quotes are used to bolster his argument.

The major issue with Dark Continent is the problems of length and organization. In order to provide clarity, Mazower organizes his topics thematically rather than chronologically. In order for the reader to properly follow this text, a companion text emphasizing the chronology of events in inter-war Europe is extremely helpful, allowing the reader to better understand the relationship between Mazower’s themes and the overall history between the wars. However, because Mazower analyzes overarching trends in those years, the way he organizes his text is quite understandable.

Overall, Mazower adds an interesting perspective to the changes of inter-war Europe, bringing new light to a period which primarily emphasis the actual events rather than the thematic trends one sees during those years.

Critical Summary of Mazower (Chapters 1-4)

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The first four chapters of Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent are incredibly informative, original, and thought provoking in regards to twentieth century European history. In these chapters he primarily focuses on the contending issues that arose after the First World War and continued to linger until the onset of World War Two. His approach is unique because he does not recount the history in a chronological order, instead choosing to focus on developing specific issues and showing how they were interrelated throughout the entire continent in one way or another. The thesis of these chapters is that the mixture of an unsettled post war climate and the failure of several democratic governments to solve the economic and social issues at hand led to a contentious political climate. This climate was ripe for the emergence of radical socialist and totalitarian regimes.

The first chapter is centrally focused on democracy and alternate forms of government. The second chapter is about nation building and post war re-structurement. The third chapter’s focus is based on government initiatives and social programs aimed at cultivating the populations of each nation. Lastly, the fourth chapter is about various economic conflicts and rebuilding efforts. Within each of these chapters Mazower chooses a topic and then elaborates on it and expands it to Europe as a whole. An example of this is when he addresses the toll that World War I inflicted on population numbers. The male populations were severely reduced in every country that fought in the war, leading to a fear of population decline and thus the weakening of the country. To combat this fear each government tried to bolster population numbers by encouraging women to reproduce prolifically, creating social programs to aid mothers in child raising, and either discouraging or outright outlawing abortion. Mazower wrote that there was a “pro-natalist reassertion of traditional family and gender roles,” that overtook much of Europe (Mazower, 84).

Mazower does an excellent job of supporting his evidence with a mix of primary and secondary sources. He cites a pro-natalist publication in Britain titled 1916 Cradles or Coffins? Our Greatest National Need, to emphasize the concern that genuinely existed in Britain. In the following sentence he mentions how Germany was doing the exact same thing, thus adhering to the structure of his book by emphasizing how certain prevailing themes crossed international boundaries and were applicable to Europe as a whole in one form or another. While his use of supporting evidence is prolific and well chosen, he tends to jump around in the text too often and does not sufficiently develop and expand his arguments.

Mazower does a good job of condensing the people, places, and events from this time period in history into one book considering how difficult of a task this is. The scope and density of the material are a grueling endeavor to tackle.  Although people who do not have background knowledge of European history may have difficulty challenging many of the preconceptions that exist, this is not a sufficient deterrant for reading this book. This text offers a fresh perspective on European History and would appeal to green undergraduates and scholars alike.

Critical Summary of Mazower’s “Dark Continent”

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Throughout the first four chapters of Dark Contienent, Mark Mazower argues in support of his thesis that in Europe, the period in between the World Wars was a time of overwhelming change.  While all of the countries of the time underwent some sort of ideological changes, from the emergence of the nation-state to the grand sense of nationalism, some countries went to dire extremes, such as Nazi Germany to the right of the political spectrum and the Bolsheviks in the USSR to the left of it.

Mazower takes a balanced look at Interwar Europe by covering a different area of developing significance in each of the four chapters.  Chapter one discusses the decline of democracies and failures of the new constitutions created after World War I. Chapter two’s focus is on the emergence of extreme nationalism and the horrifying effect this had on minorities.  Then, Chapter three covers health and social welfare programs in the nation-states, and finally, Chapter four discusses the economics of Interwar Europe.  Sometimes, Mazower’s writing style becomes too dense for the uninformed reader.  To be able to fully understand this section of the text requires at least a basic background in both economics and European history.  However, Mazower’s approach of covering one issue per chapter rather than focusing on all of the issues of a single country is a great organization tactic in relation to the complexity of the time period.  The reader is able to follow his ideas without struggle.

In his text, Mazower maintains an objective perspective on Interwar Europe.  His interpretation of it is that of many countries with similar ideological values which are often horrifying to a modern perspective, such as the use of eugenics to justify racism.  However, he paints the USSR and Nazi Germany as extremes of the social and political norm, rather than absolute abnormalities.  He shows this by discussing some the less far-fetched, yet still horrific atrocities of other European countries and even the USA, such as the legalization of sterilization of persons with disabilities for the “good” of the state.  The countries whose unethical policies Mazower discusses are both Allied nations and those aligned with the Axis Powers.  This objective strategy shows the reader that those countries who were not as extreme in their views and actions were still morally impure.

While Mazower’s text sometimes becomes too dense for the average uninformed yet intelligent undergraduate student, he provides a variety of extra resources in the back of the book, such as maps and charts.  The maps show the constantly changing boundaries of Interwar Europe while the charts convey the decline of minorities in Eastern Europe starting in 1931.  Both of these help clarify the information Mazower discusses, as well as giving visuals for some of his most important points.  Mazower also lists the wide variety sources he used.  His bibliography is extensive, however he relies heavily on secondary sources dating as late as the 1990’s and not as much on primary sources.  A better balance of the different types of sources would have made his argument more credible.

The objective perspective that Mark Mazower uses in Dark Continent gives readers an interesting and fresh perspective on Interwar Europe.  He effectively shows how the policies of the USSR and Germany are not simply abnormalities, but variations on those of the rest of the continent and all around the world gone horribly extreme.  While the density of the writing style sometimes allows for the reader’s attention to stray, the unique perspective overall keeps the reader’s interest and makes it worthwhile for interested undergraduates to study.

 

Critical Summary of Mazower’s “Dark Continent” (Chapters 1-4)

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The opening four chapters of Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent provide a thoroughly informative analysis of early twentieth-century European governments that manages to be both balanced and provocative.  By recounting the social, political, and economic climates of the continent’s constituent nations leading up to, during, and between the two world wars, Mazower examines the conditions that led to the establishment of Europe’s dominant governmental systems.  The underlying thesis of these chapters is that democracy was not, as many historiographers have claimed, a foregone conclusion for Europe.  Conversely, Mazower argues that the competing fascist and socialist efforts also vying for primacy during the interwar period seemed at times to be equally if not more viable options.

The author paints a portrait of Europe as a continent fraught with the challenge of establishing proficient governments.  Beginning with the example of the Russian revolution, “liberalism’s first wartime triumph…and most frightening defeat,” Mazower categorically breaks down his period of interest, emphasizing a different perspective in each chapter (Mazower, 11).  Chapter one discusses political theory primarily in terms of Europe’s endeavors with constitutional liberalism.  Chapter two then focuses this scope to a geopolitical evaluation of the emergence of nationalism, flowing eloquently into chapter three’s analysis of the collective ideological shift toward socialist policies after World War I.  Chapter four concludes this quartet with a survey of the role of economics in this period, particularly with regard to the various successes and failures of capitalism in dealing with postwar reconstruction.

Although these chapters do not provide comprehensive historiographical information on the subject matter, Mazower’s four-fronted approach does create a unique portrait of Europe’s “inter-war experiment with democracy” that would be an excellent introduction for a historical neophyte or a refreshing new perspective for a seasoned professional.  The author expounds on his thesis by referencing a variety of historical sources (e.g. newspaper headlines, popular pamphlets, and relevant speeches) and contemporary commentaries (e.g. academic journal articles and historical books), including a number of translations from texts published in pertinent European languages (e.g. French, German, etc.) (Mazower, 5).  While this thorough research lends credibility and color to the prose, the distribution of elements such as direct quotations and statistics is somewhat unbalanced at times, making some passages difficult to absorb in just one reading and leaving others lacking in support.  Despite this, the ends (in this case, the first four chapters as a whole) justify the means; readers will lift their heads from these sometimes challenging pages stimulated and informed, but never bored.

Collectively, Dark Continent’s first four chapters establish Mazower’s distinctive interpretation of Europe’s attempts to settle into a stable state of government during the interwar period.  They also simultaneously set the stage for the discussion of later chronological events such as the phenomenon of Nazism and the establishment of peace after World War II in subsequent chapters.  Mazower’s synthesis of a large body of information into a tight and intellectually challenging work makes Dark Continent a worthwhile read appropriate for undergraduates, enthusiasts, and researchers alike.

A Critical Summary of Mazower’s “Dark Continent”, Chapters 1-4

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In the first four chapters of his text Dark Continent, Mark Mazower not only elaborates on the events of Europe’s interwar period, going into detail about the reasons for the development of these events, he also gives his readers an objective and analytical view on the continent as a whole. As opposed to going through Europe’s interwar period country by country, Mazower structures his chapters around the main issues and developments that affected all of Europe. Mazower pushes the idea that the countries of Europe progressed simultaneously with different ideological goals, but using similar means to achieve these goals. While Mazower occasionally strays away from his main points and sites more secondary sources than primary ones, he gives a new prospective on Europe at a volatile point in its history, explaining how even those countries that seem extreme in hindsight, differed in their methodology and ideology only slightly from the rest of the continent.

The examining of Europe as an entity, and not each individual European country during the Interwar period, really adds to the ingenuity Mazower’s text. He showed the developments throughout Europe that led to such events as the rise of Nazi Germany and the Russian Revolution, and that the formation of these governments was not as sudden or surprising as is commonly thought. For example, Eugenics, invoking such tactics as sterilization, was alive in the majority of European countries, as well as The United States, at the time; the Nazis just took the next step in purifying their population by killing those that they deemed undesirable (97). As for the Bolsheviks, Lenin introduced a “New Economic Policy” in the 1920’s that allowed from some forms of capitalism, such as private business, in Russia (117).

In the back of his text, Mazower lists his sources, as well as providing the reader with charts and maps that help to clarify his relatively dense writing. Maps, for example, that show the countries of European before and after the First World War, giving the reader a better idea of what he is discussing, such as invasions and minority issues within countries. In his bibliography, Mazower sites numerous sources, ranging in date from before the First World War to the 1990’s. While this use of sources from through out the twentieth century brings the perspectives of different time periods into the text, Mazower uses more secondary sources than primary ones, which effectually distances his text from the historical evens themselves.

While Mazower’s writing can become dense and hard to follow at times, for the most part, this text is clear and accessible to undergraduate students. A basic knowledge of European history would improve a reader’s comprehension of this text because major events and facts are skimmed over, so as to focus on the details and driving forces behind these events more intently. Mazower’s method of examining Europe as a whole sheds new light on a complicated and significant period in history, showing connections and common themes between countries that have been previously overlooked.