Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He has authored and edited more than 30 books on the European dictators, the Second World War and the history of air power, including Origins of the Second World War (2016, fourth edition), The Air War 1939-1945 (2006, second edition), Why the Allies Won (2006, second edition), The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004), which won both the Wolfson and the Hessell Tiltman Prizes for History in 2005, and 1939: Countdown to War (2009). His book The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945 (2013) won a Cundill Award for historical literature.

The Inter-War Crisis is a concise yet analytical overview of the rapidly-changing world between 1918 and 1939. Revised throughout, this third edition covers topics such as the Russian Revolution, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the concepts of the 'end of civilization' and the decline of the West, and the ways in which dictatorship came to replace democracy across so much of Europe. Also including a selection of over thirty primary source documents, maps, a chronology of events, a glossary of key terms, a Who's Who of important figures and an extensive and updated guide to further reading, this book is an essential introduction for students of the inter-war period.

List of figures

List of tables

Maps

Chronology

Who's Who

PART ONE: THE BACKGROUND

1. WHAT KIND OF CRISIS?

PART TWO: ANALYSIS

2. REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION

The Russian Revolution

Exporting the Revolution

The Failure of Revolution

3. A CRISIS OF MODERNIZATION

The Challenge of Modernity

The Conservative Revolt

4. THE 'END OF CIVILIZATION'

Decline of the West

Science and Civilization

Women, Sex and Moral Decline

Psychoanalysis and the Modern Malaise

War and Civilization

5. THE 'GREAT CRASH': CAPITALISM IN CRISIS

The Causes of the Crash

The Effects of the Recession

The Search for Recovery

The End of Capitalism?

6. DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

The Decline of Democracy

The Appeal of Dictatorship

The 'New Order' in Politics

7. THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS

The Unsettled Peace

The World Crisis

The Slide to War

PART THREE: ASSESSMENT

8. THE CHALLENGE OF PROGRESS

PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Contemporary Sources, Memoirs

Revolution and Counter-Revolution

Modernization and Crisis

A Crisis of Civilization

The Inter-War Economy

Democracy and Dictatorship

The International Crisis

General Books

Glossary

References

Index