The Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

by Mark Mazower

Overview

An unflinching and intelligent alternative history of the twentieth century that provides a provocative vision of Europe's past, present, and future.

"[A] splendid book." —The New York Times Book Review

Dark Continent provides an alternative history of the twentieth century, one in which the triumph of democracy was anything but a forgone conclusion and fascism and communism provided rival political solutions that battled and sometimes triumphed in an effort to determine the course the continent would take.

Mark Mazower strips away myths that have comforted us since World War II, revealing Europe as an entity constantly engaged in a bloody project of self-invention.  Here is a history not of inevitable victories and forward marches, but of narrow squeaks and unexpected twists, where townships boast a bronze of Mussolini on horseback one moment, only to melt it down and recast it as a pair of noble partisans the next.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679757047
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/14/2000
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

MARK MAZOWER is Reader in History at the University of Sussex. He is the author of the prizewinning Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44. He writes and broadcasts regularly on current developments in the Balkans.

What People are Saying About This

Tony Judt

Mazower's splendid book... It makes a convincing case for a different version of 20th-century European history. We are quite wrong, he writes, 'to read the present back into the past, and assume—for instance—that democracy must be rooted deep in Europe's soil.

Editorial Reviews

"This splendid book makes a convincing case for a different version of 20th century European history." —The New York Times Book Review

"A useful, important book that reminds us, at the right time, how hard [European unity] has been, and how much care must be taken to avoid the terrible old temptations." —Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher

Timely, argumentative, and ultimately optimistic. Mazower is particularly good at illuminating the substance of beliefs beneath ideologies.

New Yorker

If it's the business of historians to remember what others have forgotten, Mark Mazower has done his job in Dark Continent.
— Newsday

Roane Carey

A useful, important book...Mazower has performed a necessary, vital service.
— Los Angeles Times

Flora Lewis

...[H]e is a strong writer, capable of providing arresting details and no less arresting observations.
— Commentary

David Pryce-Jones

...Makes a convincing case for an alternative version of 20th-century European history....It could have all turned out quite differently Mazower contends, and came close to doing so...."organized along Nazi lines"....A confident and unconventional work of historical interpretation.
— The New York Times Book Review

Tony Judt

...[A]s you might imagine from the title, [Mazower] finds plenty of darkness in Europe's soul. Unfortunately, he ultimately seems to get overwhelmed by the dark details and to lose his focus. -- BusinessWeek

Stephen Baker

...[T]there is much to praise in this book. Most of all, Mr. Mazower succeeds in challenging the smug assumptions of the 'end of history' thesis. -- The Wall Street Journal

Daniel J. Mahoney

Mazower's (history, U. of Sussex, UK) focus is on the values and beliefs that have driven movements and conflicts in Europe, and the consequences of blind spots in Europe's conception of itself. He writes in his preface to this history of Europe: "Taking the divisions and uncertainties of this continent seriously<-->as I have tried to do here<-->implies abandoning metaphysics, renouncing the search for some mysterious and essential `Europe,' and exploring instead the constant contest to define what it should mean." Originally published by the Penguin Group, London. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

A masterful account of Europe's cursed century. When the smoke cleared from the ruins of the Second World War, many observers assumed that Europe as it had been known for centuries had come to an end. From the physical destruction of cities to the moral catastrophe of Fascism and Nazism, it seemed as though those on the Continent had committed a collective suicide. A new type of war—cold—hovered on the horizon, leading some to envision the planet's complete and final destruction. But as British historian Mazower (University of Sussex; Inside Hitler's Greece) makes clear, things weren't always like this. The century had begun with high hopes, dashed by the bloody conflict of the Great War. Moreover, Europe's reconstruction and the relatively peaceful close of the Cold War give reason for hope. More insightfully, Mazower stresses that the very concept of "Europe" has metamorphosed with startling rapidity over the last 100 years. And this ability to change may well prove to be the continent's saving grace, he avers. The book is organized around the major three-way ideological struggle of the century: that between liberal democracy, Fascism, and Communism. Both Fascism and Communism claimed not only to be on the side of history, but also to be offering an end to it. Liberal democracy, the most modest of ideologies, appears to have weathered the storm best. Yet Mazower refuses to offer such platitudes as that liberal democracy "won" the Cold War or that we've therefore arrived at history's "end." Instead, as he explains in an epilogue, the task of "making Europe" continues to this day. Well written, with an excellent grasp of sources in several languages, this is alandmark study for the general reader.

Kirkus Reviews