"The general reader, after deep gulps of prose, will wonder why they were ever led to think that history is a dull subject. Stone′s fellow professionals will only be able to take his narrative in small doses, needing frequent pauses to think, snort or wriggle with envy." The Spectator
′This is a facinating book, elegant, witty, original, informative and many–sided...The general reader, after deep gulps of prose, will wonder why they were ever led to think that history is a dull subject. His fellow professionals will only be able to take his narrative in small doses, needing frequent pauses to think, snort or wriggle with envy... There really cannot have been a teacher like Norman Stone for many years, and his readers will now jealously compete with his pupils for his time.′ John Keeganm Spectator
Preface to the Second Edition.
Preface to the First Edition.
1. The End of ′Moral Order′: Metropolis.
The Liberal Revolution.
The ′Great Depression.′.
′Transformism′: The Politics of the 1880s.
2. Strange Death, 1890–1914: The New Course.
′National Efficiency′ and Sammlungspolitik, 1896–1904.
1905: The Ghost of 1848.
′Technocracy,′ 1906–1910.
The Ghost of Bonapartism: Réveil National, 1910–1914.
3. The Great Powers of Europe: International Relations, 1897–1914.
Germany.
Russia.
Italy.
France.
Austria–Hungary.
4. War and Revolution, 1914–1918.
′Gift from Mars.′.
The War, 1914–1918.
′Red Dawn′?.
5. New Structure: The Cultural Revolution of 1900.
Bibliography.
Index.
Norman Stone is currently Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara, TUrkey, where he is Director of the Turkish–Russian Institute. He was previously Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His first book, The Eastern Front, 1914–1017 (1975) won the Wolfson Prize for History in 1976. His other works include Hitler (1980); Czechoslovakia: Crossroads and Crises, edited with Edward Stroughal (1989); and The Other Russian: the Expereience of Exile edited with Michael Glenny (1990).
This book is fascinating introduction to the complex era from 1878 to the end of World War I. The forty years before 1914 were a period of extraordinary peace and prosperity, but this world came to a dramatic end with the start of the First World War. Stone explores the political history of the period running up to the war, setting events in the context of social, economic and cultural changes.
The period was marked by complexity: in politics parties were emerging, dividing and revesing their alliances: intenational affairs were complicated by the manoeuvrings of six major European powers; at the same time dramatic economic and social cahnges were occurring, populations were increasing, the family altering, education developing and attitudes to religion changing. Norman Stone makes sense of this confusing era by exploring these common European themes and establishing a political and international chronology for readers to follow. He reveals the individual character of the European countries, discussing the five Great Powers in essay rather than narrative form. He treats war and revolution in a seperate section and concludes by considering the cultural developments of the period.