The Dork Continent Book Review

Upon hearing the title of the book, one competency assume that it will focus on the decolonization of Africa. Africa is known as the dark continent because it remained a mystery to European explorers for an extensive amount of time. Instead, Mark Mazowers Dark Continent Europes Twentieth Century, focuses on Europe in the 20th century, as the title nones, and provides a historical and political compendium of the modern European state from the end of the First World war up until the time of publishing the book in 1988.Mazower, a early days British author and historian, has taught at the University of Sussex and Princeton, and is a prize-winning author for his book interior Hitlers Greece The Experience of Occupation, 1941-1944. The principal thesis of Dark Continent is that the victorious sovereignty of state in Europe was not predestined, save emerged significantly from the unfading struggle amidst ethnic groups and nations, as well as three rival theologies- Nazism, Commu nism, and Democracy.Mazowers thesis suggests that democracy is not the essential preferred order of political organization, even so when empires were falling and nations reorganizing later on the devastation of World warfare I. Of the three ideologies, Mazower concludes that Communism was the closest to being satisfactory in both theory and practice. The book begins with the discussion of the rise and fall of democracy. The struggle between the three ideologies was at the core of European twentieth century history.Preceding the the outgrowth World War, Europe only had three republics by the end of 1918 thither were thirteen. Even so, democracy was unable to secure itself during inter-war years. Liberalism was short-lived and egalitarian determine disappeared as political polarization brought much of Europe to the verge of well-behaved war. Mazower notes that in 1930, Weimars Chancellor Hermann Muller warned that a democracy without democrats is an internal and out-of-door da nger but the founders of post-war constitutionalism had not given much thought to the matter.For legion(predicate) conservatives, the problem with democracy was simply due to the power it gave the masses in the supposed incompatibility of democracy and authority. The conservatives also feared that democracy placed withal much stress on rights and not enough on duties. match to Mazower, the collapse of liberal democracy was the result of its focus on transit rather than on results. In Mazowers view, Russian liberals assume mistakenly that a deep rooted social crisis could be solved by offering the people constitutional liberties(23).The consequence was that, at the end of the 20s was that the new nations that came about after the Versailles peace treaties came to be ruled by authoritarian regimes rather than democratic governments. The emergence of fascist and communist leaders with policies regarding state control of resources was unavoidable. For the citizens that were old- hat of the war and failed attempts of democracy, men like Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, and Mussolini provided new hope for a stabilisation in Europe.The pursuits of fascists like Hitler and Mussolini and the lesser in Eastern European nations whitethorn be reprehensible, Mazower admits, but it is at least comprehensible. What these dictators were doing was little different from what their predecessors in England, France, Russia, and even Belgium had done for the past half century culminating European regal expansion that began in the 1870s. By the late 1930s, it was evident that liberal democracy had lost its reign in Europe. Hitlers New Order appeared to be Europes future. Mazower argues that even in December 1919 Lenin saw that both terror and the Cheka are ndispensable tools to maintain the eternal dictatorship of the bourgeois. Furthermore, the scientific term dictatorship, means nothing more or less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely open-plan by any rules whateve r and based directly on labor (page 24). With that said, Mazower notes that communism turned out to be the last, and perhaps highest stage of imperialism. Mazower does an extraordinary job at giving his view of Hitler. I found this to be a successful way of supporting his thesis. What I found to be odd was the way he described the works of Hitler.I would assume that he would clearly show his disapproval of the matter, rather he seems to approach the turn off lightly. Mazower makes an attempt to make us see that Hitlers belief that Germanys destiny depended on the geographic replacement of Slavs in Ukraine. Moreover, Mazower suggests that the Second World War did not start because of diplomatic misunderstanding or confusion, nor even because of Hitlers deceit or duplicity. Rather it started because Hitlers opponents realized they were faced with a clash of two worlds-Berlin and London(82).What I did like about the book was the fact that Mazower explained the cause of communisms fa ll authentically well. I was a bit confused before of exactly what events sparked the fall, but I was surely aware and understood fully after meter skiming this thoughtful book. As mentioned before, I found that Mazower seemed to praise Hitlers actions, suggesting that he was not part of the cause for World War II, but puts the blame on Hitlers opponents. It makes me question what side of the field Mazower is playing. Nevertheless, the book was a great read and provided an exuberant amount of historical background in Europe.