Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century

Jarausch (After Hitler), a historian at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, examines 20th-century Europe through three distinct kinds of ideological and cultural modernities—democratic, communist, and fascist—that struggled for mastery until the democratic and democratic-socialist versions won out. There’s little Jarausch doesn’t cover in steady, stately prose. He never loses sight of the alternative, contingent courses Europe could have taken at each juncture. Art, music, and literature fill the pages alongside politics, diplomacy, and war. Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union get their full due. While the major figures of Europe don’t come as thoroughly alive as they might, Jarausch compensates by brilliantly linking the century’s historical developments together and showing how reactions against modernity always made themselves felt along the way, often with disastrous results. While fitting everything into the mold of modernity (and, toward the end, postmodernism) can become reductionist, this organizing motif and Jarausch’s authoritativeness carry the day. The work isn’t designed to be encyclopedic, yet it should be on the shelf of everyone seeking a panoramic, narrative guide to history’s most violent century. This comprehensive history of 20th-century Europe is bound to become the standard work on its subject: a bold, major achievement. (June)