European International Relations 1914-present

Catalog description

This exciting survey of international politics in the 20th century might well be called the decline and fall of the European Great Powers because it describes the unspeakable carnage of the two world wars and the apocalyptic tensions of the divided continent during the Cold War that followed. As late as 1914 the British, French, German, Austrian Habsburg, and tsarist Russian empires enjoyed military and imperial hegemony throughout Eurasia and Africa, while Britain was the world’s financial and commercial leader and Germany a military-industrial giant. But by 1945 the continent lay in ruins and the world had been partitioned by the United States and Soviet Union. How and why did European civilization self-destruct and how did it manage to resuscitate itself in the European Union since 1991? Those are among the big questions we shall explore, while encountering along the way such striking personalities as Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, and Charles De Gaulle. So strap on your seatbelts and sign up for this adventure.