“Magisterial…. Kershaw handles the dark materials of his story with extraordinary grace, weaving his themes together with admirable analytical clarity…. Kershaw’s account is illuminating precisely because it tightens the focus of the analysis, allowing us to see the continent as a diagram of contending forces, like the storm fronts and wind barbs on a weather map.”—Christopher Clark, The New York Review of Books
“Remarkable and eminently readable…. Kershaw’s book will deliver a jolt to American readers.”—Boston Globe
“Mr. Kershaw has written a fair-minded, deeply researched and highly readable book that will serve as the first point of departure for anyone wishing to understand Europe’s most terrible decades.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Magisterial.”—The Economist
“Well suited to casual readers and professional historians alike, this enlightening consideration of the World Wars and the interwar years is a worthwhile purchase. It will delight fans of Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890–1914.”—Library Journal
“Kershaw’s strength is political and economic history… and he uncovers a number of largely forgotten events…. [A] well-organized history.”—Publishers Weekly
“Kershaw manages to cover a vast canvas of events with judicious skill and immense learning, never getting bogged down in detail or devoting excessive space to his special area of German expertise. We move at a fair clip, and always feel that we are in the hands of a master historian with a firm grasp of his mountainous material.”—The Spectator (UK)
“Even those who know this history well will find much to shock them in these pages. They will find much to enlighten them too, for it is not just a catalogue of horrors, but also a rigorous analysis of causes.”—The Times (UK)
“Other historians’ books on the same period may be flashier or more provocative. But to read Kershaw on Europe’s bloody century is to be driven through a ravaged landscape in the sleek, smooth comfort of a Rolls-Royce, guided by a historian who probably knows the territory better than anybody else on the planet.”—The Sunday Times (UK)
“[Kershaw’s] thoughtful and comprehensive history is likely to become a classic.”—The Observer (UK)
“[A] political, economic and military history of the entire continent of Europe…. There are no easy explanations for the disasters that overwhelmed individuals who were caught… in the living hells fuelled by militarism, ethnic-racist politics, class conflict and economic crises. Kershaw leads his readers through this complex history in a clear and compelling manner.”—Prospect (UK)
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