The Vanquished, Robert Gerwarth
The Vanquished, Robert Gerwarth
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The Vanquished
Why the First World War Failed to End

Author: Robert Gerwarth

Narrator: Michael Page

Unabridged: 10 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/15/2016


Synopsis

In The Vanquished, a highly original and gripping work of history, Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. In large part it was not the fighting on the Western Front that proved so ruinous to Europe's future, but the devastating aftermath, as countries on both sides of the original conflict were savaged by revolutions, pogroms, mass expulsions, and further major military clashes. If the war itself had in most places been a struggle mainly between state-backed soldiers, these new conflicts were predominantly perpetrated by civilians and paramilitaries, and driven by a murderous sense of injustice projected onto enemies real and imaginary. In the years immediately after the armistice, millions would die across central, eastern, and southeastern Europe before the Soviet Union and a series of rickety and exhausted small new states would come into being. It was here, in the ruins of Europe, that extreme ideologies such as fascism would take shape.

As absorbing in its drama as it is unsettling in its analysis, The Vanquished is destined to transform our understanding of not just the First World War but of the twentieth century as a whole.

About Robert Gerwarth

Robert Gerwarth is a professor of modern history at UCD and director of the Centre for War Studies. He is the author of The Bismarck Myth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, and a biography of Reinhard Heydrich. Robert has authored several articles in leading international journals such as Past and Present, the Journal of Modern History, Geschichte and Gesellschaft, and Vingtieme Siecle. His work has been translated into thirty languages.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nigeyb on March 02, 2018

Having finished this exceptional book, I now realise that my rather lazy and Anglo-centric view of the period following WW1, as a relatively peaceful era, was completely wide of the mark. Robert Gerwarth brilliantly describes how for many countries and regions, the Armistice on 11 November 1918, was......more

Goodreads review by Paul on October 14, 2019

This book is way too short to contain the vast and furious events it tries to explain. In 1917-18 four empires collapsed (German, Russian, Habsburg, Ottoman) and dozens of new countries were born or imposed from above; the Bolshevik revolution in Russia drove everyone completely crazy with the notio......more

Goodreads review by Margarita on January 25, 2021

Vae Victis (“Горко на победените”, лат.) Великодушието на победителя в международната политика сигурно е най-рядкото явление. Всеизвестно е, че начинът, по който са третирани победените в Първата световна война, подготвя почвата за реваншистки настроения и екстремистки политики, които подпалват Втора......more