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

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.

Author: Enzo Traverso
Publisher: Verso
Published: 03/28/2017
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.00w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9781784781361
ISBN10: 1784781363
BISAC Categories:
- History | Modern | 20th Century | General
- History | Europe | General
- History | Western Europe | General

About the Author
Enzo Traverso is the Susan and Barton Winokur Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University. His publications, all translated into various languages, include more than ten authored and edited books, including The Marxists and the Jewish Question, The Jews and Germany, Understanding the Nazi Genocide and The Origins of Nazi Violence.