Print Price: $36.50

Format:
Paperback
928 pp.
16pp b&w plates, 18 maps, 12 figures, 156 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780198730736

Publication date:
March 2009

Imprint: OUP UK

Barbarism and Civilization

A History of Europe in our Time

Bernard Wasserstein

The twentieth century in Europe witnessed some of the most brutish episodes in history. Yet it also saw incontestable improvements in the conditions of existence for most inhabitants of the continent - from rising living standards and dramatically increased life expectancy, to the virtual elimination of illiteracy, and the advance of women, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals to greater equality of respect and opportunity.

It was a century of barbarism and civilization, of cruelty and tenderness, of technological achievement and environmental spoliation, of imperial expansion and withdrawal, of authoritarian repression - and of individualism resurgent.

Covering everything from war and politics to social, cultural, and economic change, Barbarism and Civilization is by turns grim, humorous, surprising, and enlightening: a window on the century we have left behind and the earliest years of its troubled successor.

Readership : All those interested in the history of Europe in the twentieth century.

Reviews

• Review from previous edition: "A very impressive historical synthesis... Wasserstein has a lovely brisk, dry style that keeps the pages turning. He is also a fine storyteller: His accounts of the great military and diplomatic set-pieces are not just well researched and thoughtful but fast-moving and exciting. As narrative histories of the last century go, this is as good as it gets."
  
  --Dominic Sandbrook, Literary Review
• "A rare gem of contemporary scholarship... [a] tour de force."
  
  --Publishers Weekly 8/10/2007
• "An admirable work of scholarly synthesis, which should be required reading... for anyone absorbed by the perplexing century we recently left behind... enjoyable as well as compelling"
  
  --Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Spectator 16/1/2008
• "I...a comprehensive yet readable narrative that blends arresting detail with well-considered generalisations."
  
  --David Cesarani, Jewish Chronicle 19/10/07
• "Wasserstein displays encyclopedic knowledge of his subject but has written far more than an encyclopedia... His authoritative account of Europe's highs and lows over the past century will give readers everything they need"
  
  --Foreign Affairs 03/2008
• "A rich and broad-ranging synthesis... the book has a pleasing density and balance... Numerous plums enrich an always fluently written and insightful text that artfully conceals the amount of material that has been synthesized."
  
  --Mark Mazower, Times Literary Supplment 2/5/2008
• "Eloquent, exhaustive and highly learned, this book is both a considerable achievement and an enlivening read...a highly competent and impressive book."
  
  --John Bew, Times Higher Education Supplement 21/09/2007
• "By turns grim, humorous and surprising, this is a fascinating sweep of the century, covering war, politics, and social, cultural and economic change."
  
  --Belfast Telegraph 18/08/2007