Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II

by Iván T. Berend

Only by understanding Central and Eastern Europe's turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century can we hope to make sense of the conflicts and crises that have followed World War II and, after that, the collapse of Soviet-controlled state socialism. Ivan Berend looks closely at the fateful decades preceding World War II and at twelve countries whose absence from the roster of major players was enough in itself, he says, to precipitate much of the turmoil.

As waves of modernization swept over Europe, the less developed countries on the periphery tried with little or no success to imitate Western capitalism and liberalism. Instead they remained, as Berend shows, rural, agrarian societies notable for the tenacious survival of feudal and aristocratic institutions. In that context of frustration and disappointment, rebellion was inevitable. Berend leads the reader skillfully through the maze of social, cultural, economic, and political changes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Soviet Union, showing how every path ended in dictatorship and despotism by the start of World War II.

Genres: History

485 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written and informative history of the region and era. The unfortunate circumstance of these states emerging from the destruction of empires after WWI, struggling to create nation states, while undermined by the great powers and the Great Depression, to find themselves between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia and the disaster of WWII. One hopes the stability of Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the USSR and over 40 years of occupation will allow them to create functional governments and societies.