Barbarism and civilization : a history of Europe in our time

Historian Bernard Wasserstein offers the first serious, full-length history of a century of convulsive change. It is a history of cruelty and tenderness, of technological achievement and environmental blight, of imperial expansion and withdrawal, of authoritarian repression and of individual rebirth. Wasserstein provides both a narrative of the main contours of the political, diplomatic, and military history and an analysis of the underpinnings of demographic, economic, and social developments. Most notably, the book explores the evolution of values and sensibilities in a period when, for the first time, God disappeared as a living presence in the minds of most Europeans. Wasserstein argues that barbarism and civilization were not polar opposites: rather they marched hand in hand. But he also shows that if Europe witnessed some of the most brutish episodes in the recorded history of our species, it also saw incontestable improvements in living conditions for most inhabitants of the continent.--From publisher description. Includes bibliographical references (pages 838-866) and index. xxiii, 901 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm