The Inter-War Crisis

Description

The inter-war years were, at the time, perceived to be years of crisis across the world. The First World War, ‘the war to end all wars’, had solved nothing and its legacy was a world full of unresolved disputes and manifest ambiguities.

Overy examines the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic crisis which struck at the very foundations of the capitalist world, and seeks to explain why dictatorships came to supplant democracy in Italy, Spain, Germany, the Baltic States and the Balkans, and why the world slid into war once more in 1939.

Contents

Introduction to the series
Acknowledgements
Chronology

PART ONE: THE BACKGROUND

1.  What Kind of Crisis?

PART TWO: ANALYSIS

2. Revolution and Counter-Revolution
 The Russian Revolution
 Exporting the Revolution
 The failure of revolution

3.  A Crisis of Modernisation
 The challenge of modernity
 The conservative revolt

4. The ‘End of Civilisation’
Decline of the West
 Science and civilisation
 Women, sex and moral decline
 Psycho-Analysis and the Modern Malaise
War and civilisation

5.  The ‘Great Crash’: Capitalism in Crisis
The causes of the Crash
The effects of the recession
The search for recovery
The end of capitalism?

6. Democracy and Dictatorship
 The decline of democracy
The appeal of dictatorship
The ‘New Order’ in Politics

7.  The International Crisis
The unsettled peace
 The world crisis
The slide to war

PART THREE: ASSESSMENT

8.  The Challenge of Progress

PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS

Glossary
Who’s Who
Bibliography

Index

Features

• Document sections illustrate key points and encourage students to read original sources
• A chronology provides an at-a-glance guide to key dates
• Who’s Who section provides short bibliographies of major figures
• A guide to further reading ensures quality of students research