The Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century Book

Dark Continent is not an easy read, but it is a good one with numerous insights to the time between 1919 and the 1990s. Mazower describes the rise of Hitler amid a Europe fascinated by nationality and race and tired of democracy and capitalism. He offers no apologies for the Nazi movement, but describes a European context alive with racism and fear that makes Hitler an extreme example and not an otherworldly demonic force. The chapters on the haphazard operations of the Nazi conquerors and the slow creation of the Eastern block during the Cold War add the horror of alternative histories to the real horrors he relays. He recounts forced migration after the war (12 million Germans expelled from Eastern Europe), ethnic cleansing that combining with Nazi horrors left Eastern European countries far more ethnically homogenous than before the conflict. In both Western and Eastern Europe a drive for consumer goods in the 60s and 70s replaced heroic post-war rebuilding efforts. He is not fond of Thatcher or that postive about the EU, but is happy that post-war Europe has settled peacefully (even complacently) into its smaller world role. Great examples, thoughtful and contrary arguments, incredibly enlightening.