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A review by jgn
To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 by Ian Kershaw
5.0
I have been trying to switch all of my reading to digital, but while in London, and having visited the Imperial War Museum, I stopped in at Foyle's and Waterstone's . . . I still have that disease where if I visit a bookstore it's hard for me not to buy a book. Kershaw's new history of Europe during and between the wars beckoned to me.
This is a great history book for anyone who wants a "spine" for their understanding of Europe: Events, people, economics, culture. It is highly synthetic, merging many sources, but also has the author's sometimes sarcastic voice. It was a pretty fast read because there are no footnotes to lure the reader into the minutiae -- for this kind of history I'd say that is a good thing.
In a lot of ways this is old-fashioned history. In the war chapters, it's about strategy, battles, and movements of people. In the economics sections, it's mostly macro-economics with occasional dips into the way money was changing on the street.
My reading in history is biased to the United States, England, and France, and this book is great because while telling the main events of the big players, Kershaw will then amble through the other countries: Scandinavia, the Balkans, Slavic areas, and, importantly, make distinctions: For instance, I did not know about the many years of democracy in both Czechoslovakia and Finland. A critical place where Kershaw spends a fair amount of time is making distinctions between Fascism, Nazism, Totalitarianism, etc. This is where his prior work as an historian of Hitler helps.
In this book, the USA is a bit player (well, until we get to Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan) which is a nice re-orientation for an American reader. On the other hand, he too-simply blames the Great Depression on Wall Street. The US contribution to D-Day is covered in about 1/2 page. But it makes sense, because of the interest in describing vast movements.
Recommended if your idea of "Europe" is just the Western players.
This is a great history book for anyone who wants a "spine" for their understanding of Europe: Events, people, economics, culture. It is highly synthetic, merging many sources, but also has the author's sometimes sarcastic voice. It was a pretty fast read because there are no footnotes to lure the reader into the minutiae -- for this kind of history I'd say that is a good thing.
In a lot of ways this is old-fashioned history. In the war chapters, it's about strategy, battles, and movements of people. In the economics sections, it's mostly macro-economics with occasional dips into the way money was changing on the street.
My reading in history is biased to the United States, England, and France, and this book is great because while telling the main events of the big players, Kershaw will then amble through the other countries: Scandinavia, the Balkans, Slavic areas, and, importantly, make distinctions: For instance, I did not know about the many years of democracy in both Czechoslovakia and Finland. A critical place where Kershaw spends a fair amount of time is making distinctions between Fascism, Nazism, Totalitarianism, etc. This is where his prior work as an historian of Hitler helps.
In this book, the USA is a bit player (well, until we get to Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan) which is a nice re-orientation for an American reader. On the other hand, he too-simply blames the Great Depression on Wall Street. The US contribution to D-Day is covered in about 1/2 page. But it makes sense, because of the interest in describing vast movements.
Recommended if your idea of "Europe" is just the Western players.