Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914–1945
    Unavailable
    Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914–1945
    Unavailable
    Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914–1945
    Ebook414 pages7 hours

    Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914–1945

    By Enzo Traverso

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    Europe’s second Thirty Years’ War—an epoch of blood and ashes

    Fire and Blood looks at the European crisis of the two world wars as a single historical sequence: the age of the European Civil War (1914–1945). Its overture was played out in the trenches of the Great War; its coda on a ruined continent. It opened with conventional declarations of war and finished with “unconditional surrender.” Proclamations of national unity led to eventual devastation, with entire countries torn to pieces. During these three decades of deepening conflicts, a classical interstate conflict morphed into a global civil war, abandoning rules of engagement and fought by irreducible enemies rather than legitimate adversaries, each seeking the annihilation of its opponents. It was a time of both unchained passions and industrial, rationalized massacre. Utilizing multiple sources, Enzo Traverso depicts the dialectic of this era of wars, revolutions and genocides. Rejecting commonplace notions of “totalitarian evil,” he rediscovers the feelings and reinterprets the ideas of an age of intellectual and political commitment when Europe shaped world history with its own collapse.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVerso
    Release dateJan 1, 2016
    ISBN9781784781354
    Unavailable
    Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914–1945
    Author

    Enzo Traverso

    Enzo Traverso is Susan and Barton Winokur Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University. His publications include more than ten authored and edited books, including The End of Jewish Modernity (Pluto, 2016), Fire and Blood, The European Civil War 1914-1945 (Verso, 2016) and Understanding the Nazi Genocide: Marxism after Auschwitz (Pluto Press, 1999).

    Read more from Enzo Traverso

    Related to Fire and Blood

    Related ebooks

    Modern History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Country Profile Myanmar

      Oct 9, 2022

      Country Profile Myanmar
      2 min read

    • Article

      Can Foreign Policy Be Feminist? Sweden Says Yes.

      Feb 7, 2018

      Gender equality isn't just a domestic issue, according to Stockholm. It's an ideal that countries can help implement around the world – but not without wrinkles. Part 5 of Reaching for Equity: a global series on gender and power.

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Last Statues Of Empire

      May 27, 2021

      IN 1996, ONE YEAR BEFORE HONG KONG’S return of sovereignty to China, Pun Sing-lui set about the bronze statue of Queen Victoria that sits in the city’s leafy Victoria Park, beside magnificent Victoria Harbour, with a hammer. As well as caving in the

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Reckoning Is Yet to Come

      Apr 11, 2022

      The Reckoning Is Yet to Come
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dr Michael Rapport On The Importance Of Studying The Napoleonic Wars

      May 11, 2023

      DR MICHAEL RAPPORT is a reader in modern European history at the University of Glasgow and the author of several books, including The Napoleonic Wars: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2013). To hear Dr Rapport answer popular questions about the Napole

      2 min read

    • Article

      BOOKS & PODCASTS

      Nov 25, 2021

      BOOKS & PODCASTS
      2 min read

    • Article

      Longing For The Past

      May 9, 2024

      We are all familiar with nostalgia and its melancholic longing for the halcyon days of yore – and knowing that we’re spinning the past to suit our needs in the present in many ways only heightens the bittersweet taste. In this fascinating book, Agnes

      2 min read

    • Article

      Left Behind

      Apr 18, 2022

      There exists a strand of social thought, stretching from Georg Hegel in the 19th century through to Max Weber in the early 20th and Jürgen Habermas in the postwar era, that insists a hallmark of modernity is the differentiation of forms of human know

      7 min read

    • Article

      Michael Wood On...

      Feb 18, 2021

      It’s time for a book clear out. I’ve been avoiding this moment for some years, but (and I’m sure many readers feel the same) our house is sagging under a lifetime’s accumulation of history books, especially from second-hand bookshops. Arlington and L

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ever Closer Confusion

      Jul 25, 2019

      Ever Closer Confusion
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Tangled Roots Of The Third Reich

      Oct 26, 2023

      WITH THE CENTENARY OF THE Weimar Republic’s founding just gone, and that of Hitler’s rise to power fast approaching, interest in modern German history is as strong as ever. New books about Nazism and World War II still adorn the shelves of most books

      5 min read

    • Article

      Culture In The Third Reich

      Oct 1, 2020

      Culture In The Third Reich
      1 min read

    • Article

      2023 Books Of The Year

      Nov 23, 2023

      2023 Books Of The Year
      12 min read

    • Article

      How Horror Changed After WWI

      Oct 31, 2018

      How Horror Changed After WWI
      7 min read

    • Article

      From Worms To Woke

      May 26, 2022

      HAVE WE BEEN HERE BEFORE? Now, in 2022, with war abroad and woke at home, we contemplate the bitter dissolution of the hopes of the late twentieth century. Five hundred years ago, in 1521, Martin Luther’s appearance at the Diet of Worms signalled the

      5 min read

    • Article

      The End Of Empires

      Sep 2, 2021

      The End Of Empires
      4 min read

    • Article

      Our True European Home

      Jul 27, 2023

      Our True European Home
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Fire and Blood

    4/5

    13 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      An absolutely sobering read as the US moves into the age of Trump. The discussion of fear and violence by Hobbes, interpreted by Schmidt, is chilling. All these years later, the song remains the same. Nothing is certain, every victory temporary.
    • 2/5
      Traverso makes a few valuable, if overtly political and, at times, moralising, points about the traditionally liberal conceptions of the period under study. What I found most compelling was the investigation of the terms 'war' and 'peace', terms which, if their meaning and significance to the human being are to be captured, cannot be conceived of in such a narrow and legalistic sense as 'the organised conflict of state actors' and, coversely, the lack thereof. That, if nothing else, is certainly something to chew on. But if we were to situate this work within the discussion of whether history-writing ought to be a Rankean exercise in empiricism or, instead, the pursuit of a literary art form, we might leave both sides uncomfortable, for Traverso's engagement with primary sources is cursory and his writing is dry and boring. To be fair to him as an author, that latter may well be the fault of the translator. Traverso seems to have envisioned a grand synthesis with a generational approach to an otherwise familiar period, but the final product is really more provocative than it is compelling. These shortfalls might explain the choice of publisher in Verso Books.