Europe's Darkest Hour (1878–1923): Why World War I Broke Out and How Europe Rebuilt Afterward

Beginning with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 and ending with the Ruhr Crisis of 1923, this book recounts the major events in forty-five years of European history. It offers an in-depth look at the Balkan crises, World War I, the Paris Peace Conference, the League of Nations, and Europe’s failed postwar reconstruction. With deep feeling and clear-eyed thought, the author depicts the European powers’ swelling greed and slide into war, the victors’ humiliating, exploitative dismemberment of the defeated nations, and how Europe’s great powers lost all reason and descended into madness after the war, plunging the continent into one terrible crisis after another.