Encyclopaedia Britannica - Ancient civilizations and History of Europe

Materialism, 1871–1900 (1941, reprinted 1983), add to the understanding of political and economic characteristics of the period and interpret its culture. William W. Stowe, Balzac, James, and the Realistic Novel (1983), considers the development of the genre from its inception to its modern transformations.

Bruce Bernard (ed.), The Impressionist Revolution (1986), interprets the broadest aspects of artistic innovation. Maly Gerhardus and Dietfried Gerhardus, Symbolism and Art Nouveau: Sense of Impending Crisis, Refinement of Sensibility, and Life Reborn in Beauty (1979; originally published in German, 1977), covers the last two decades of the 19th century in this excellently illustrated volume. Yvonne Brunhammer, The Art Deco Style (1983), examines the radical change in design characteristic of the new century. Lewis Mumford et al., The Arts in Renewal (1951, reprinted 1969), is a collection of interpretive studies on the historical establishment of modernism in various artistic genres. Henry R. Hitchcock, Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration (1929, reprinted 1972), offers a prospect and retrospect after a generation of the “International Style.” Jacques Barzun

European society since 1914

The scope and volume of literature on the period is so vast that no comprehensive bibliography can be suggested here. Most of the following works, however, contain significant bibliographies of their own. General historical surveys include Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History (1964); Michael D. Biddiss, The Age of the Masses: Ideas and Society in Europe Since 1870 (1977); Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Europe: A History of Its People (1990; originally published in French, 1990); H. Stuart Hughes and James Wilkinson, Contemporary Europe: A History, 7th ed. (1991); James Joll, Europe Since 1870: An International History, 3rd ed. (1983); and David Thomson, Europe Since Napoleon, 2nd ed. (1962, reprinted 1981). World War I is examined in Spencer Tucker, The Great War, 1914–1918 (1998); C.R.M.F. Cruttwell, A History of the Great War, 1914–1918, 2nd ed. (1936, reissued 1982); J.E. Edmonds, A Short History of World War I (1951, reprinted 1968); Cyril B. Falls, The First World War (1960); and Bernadotte Schmitt and Harold Vedeler, The World in the Crucible, 1914–1939 (1984). Accounts of the Treaty of Versailles are found in H.W.V. Temperley (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, 6 vol. (1920–24, reissued 1969); Harold Nicolson, Peacemaking, 1919: Being Reminiscences of the Paris Peace Conference (1933, reissued 1984); John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919, reissued 1988); Étienne Mantoux, The Carthaginian Peace; or, The Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes (1946, reprinted 1978); Arno Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking (1967); and Marc Trachtenberg, Reparation in World Politics (1980).

David Clay Large, Between Two Fires: Europe’s Path in the 1930s (1990), provides a general overview of the interwar period. Special studies include Charles Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe (1975); Benjamin Martin, France and the Après Guerre, 1918–1924 (1999); Eugen Weber, The Hollow Years (1994); Peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968, reprinted 1981); H.W. Hodson, Slump and Recovery, 1929–1937: A Survey of World Economic Affairs (1938, reprinted 1983), on the Great Depression; Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, rev. ed. (1962); Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini (1981), on dictatorial leadership; Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, 3rd rev. ed. (1986); and F.P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 2 vol. (1952, reprinted in 1 vol., 1986), on the political realities confronted by this organization.

The approach and developments of World War II are summarized in A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (1961, reissued 1983); Donald Cameron Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 (1989); Peter Calvocoressi, Guy Wint, and John Pritchard, Total War: The Causes and Courses of the Second World War, 2nd rev. ed. (1989); Martin Gilbert, The Second World War: A Complete History (1989); Gordon Wright, The Ordeal of Total War, 1939–1945 (1968); Michael Marrus, The Holocaust in History (1987); and Raoul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (1961).

The postwar situation is examined in Richard Mayne, The Recovery of Europe: From Devastation to Unity (1970), and Postwar: The Dawn of Today’s Europe (1983); Roger Morgan, West European Politics Since 1945: The Shaping of the European Community (1972); Derek W. Urwin, Western Europe Since 1945: A Political History, 4th ed. (1989); Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes (1994); and Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1992 (1993). Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969, reprinted 1987), discusses, among other things, the Marshall Plan. Henry L. Roberts, Eastern Europe: Politics, Revolution & Diplomacy (1970); and W.W. Rostow, The Division of Europe After World War II, 1946 (1981), focus on the forces that developed the Cold War. Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution, 3rd ed. (1956), and From Lenin to Khrushchev: The History of World Communism, new ed. (1985), examine developments in eastern Europe and the communist world. V.G. Kiernan, European Empires from Conquest to Collapse, 1815–1960 (1982), examines the dynamics of colonialism. T. Iván Berend, An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization (2006), offers an economic perspective.

The development of European unity is discussed in Sidney Pollard, European Economic Integration, 1815–1970 (1974); Walter Lipgens, A History of European Integration: 1945–1947, trans. from German (1982); Jean Monnet, Memoirs (1978; originally published in French, 1976); R.C. Mowat, Creating the European Community (1973); Miriam Camps, Britain and the European Community, 1955–1963 (1964); and Richard Mayne and John Pinder, Federal Union: The Pioneers (1990). Further insights into the European Union are provided by Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union: An Introduction to European Integration, 3rd ed. (2005); and John McCormick, The European Union: Politics and Policies, 4th ed. (2008). Richard J. Mayne

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