{"product_id":"the-dark-valley-a-panorama-of-the-1930s-9780375408816","title":"The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s","description":"\u003cp\u003eA magisterial  unprecedented overview of the clouded and turbulent years before World War II.  It was a decade dominated worldwide by the Great Depression  by unemployment and hardship; a time when human achievement was matched by pervasive fear; when the great neon metaphors of hope that rose up after World War I--Broadway  Piccadilly Circus  the Kurfrstendamm  the Ginza--grew dim both literally and figuratively. It was a decade during which darkness often masqueraded as light--Hitlers abolition of unemployment in Germany; Stalins plans for progress and social equality in Russia; Mussolinis \"revival\" of Italy--while governments established and maintained control through brutal physical repression and the more nsidious  lasting repressions of truth: sanctioned deception and relentless propaganda. It was a decade during which a diffuse economic and social crisis condensed into a massive political and military storm.  Focusing individually on each of the primary staging grounds for history during the 1930s--the United States  Germany  Italy  France  Britain  Japan  Russia and Spain--Piers Brendon traces the particular and diverse experiences of the decade. Political and economic circumstances form the framework of this breathtaking work of scholarship  but it is also the story of people: both of crucial figures--Hitler  Stalin  Mao  Roosevelt  Franco  Chiang Kai-Shek and Mussolini  to name a few--and of a secondary  but no less fascinating  cast of characters  including George Orwell  Leni Riefenstahl and Ernest Hemingway. Brendon vividly conjures the texture and tone of life in places as far-flung as Paris and Kyoto  Vienna and Shanghai  Magnitogorsk in the Ural Mountains and Norris in the Tennessee Valley. He depicts the circumstances of the Ukrainian famine and the American Dust Bowl  the Night of the Long Knives and the conquest of Ethiopia  the bombing of Guernica  the Anschluss and the great Soviet purges. He describes the clothes people wore  the food they ate  the books and newspapers they read  the work they did or lacked  the beliefs they held  the pleasures they enjoyed  the sufferings they endured.  The public sphere and the personal realm  the collective lives of nations and the details of individual lives--each element of the book contributes to its brilliant elucidation of the ways in which  during the 1930s  political power obscured knowledge  economic catastrophe darkened understanding and the foundation was laid for the most profound and far-reaching crisis of modern times.  The Dark Valley is a revelation of the ten years that set the course for the remainder of the twentieth century.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45279983763509,"sku":"ByrdShop_0375408819","price":30.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780375408816.jpg?v=1780617129","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-dark-valley-a-panorama-of-the-1930s-9780375408816","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}