{"product_id":"the-dark-continent-europes-twentieth-century-borzoi-book","title":"The Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (Borzoi Book)","description":"Dark Continent is a searching history of Europes most brutal century. Stripping away the comforting myths and illusions that we have grown up with since the Second World War  Mark Mazower presents an unflinching account of a continent locked in a finely balanced struggle between tolerance and racial extermination  imperial ambition and national self-determination  liberty and the tyrannies of Right and Left. It is an attempt to trace the origins of \"Western values\"--the ideological terms we now live by--and to ask what remains of the struggles of previous generations.  Instead of seeing Europe as the natural home of freedom and democracy  Mazower argues that it was a frequently nightmarish laboratory for social and political engineering  inventing and reinventing itself through war  revolution and ideological competition. Fascism and communism should be regarded not as exceptions to the general rule of democracy  but as alternative forms of government that attracted many Europeans by offering different solutions to the challenges of the modern world. By 1940 the prospects for democratic government looked bleak  and Europes future seemed to lie in Hitlers hands. Yet freedom was given another chance with the defeat of the Nazi New Order  and it prevailed decades later across the continent with the collapse of the Iron Curtain.  Mazowers extraordinarily skilled and insightful analysis provides us with a new perspective on the events of the century now drawing to a close. From the beginnings of the First World War to the establishment of the European Union  he depicts a battle for hearts and minds that reached more deeply than ever before into the daily lives of ordinary people. Vividly written and vigorously argued  Dark Continent presents both a comprehensive history of twentieth-century Europe and a provocative vision of its future.","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44848634331189,"sku":"ByrdShop_0679438092","price":41.86,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/ByrdShop_0679438092_1aae6bc2-9415-4bad-b9cb-1bf2d4408d19.jpg?v=1771410479","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-dark-continent-europes-twentieth-century-borzoi-book","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}