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To Hell and Back
  • Published: 18 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780141980430
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 624
  • RRP: $29.99

To Hell and Back

Europe, 1914-1949

Formats & editions
Paperback
18 July 2016
EBook
18 July 2016
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From one of our greatest historians, the epic story of how 20th-century Europe went to hell and back

In the summer of 1914 most of Europe plunged into a war so catastrophic that it unhinged the continent's politics and beliefs in a way that took generations to recover from. The disaster terrified its survivors, shocked that a civilization that had blandly assumed itself to be a model for the rest of the world had collapsed into a chaotic savagery beyond any comparison. In 1939 Europeans would initiate a second conflict that managed to be even worse - a war in which the killing of civilians was central and which culminated in the Holocaust. To Hell and Back tells this story with humanity, flair and originality. Kershaw gives a compelling narrative of events, but he also wrestles with the most difficult issues that the events raise - with what it meant for the Europeans who initiated and lived through such fearful times - and what this means for us.
  • Published: 18 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780141980430
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 624
  • RRP: $29.99

Also by Ian Kershaw

Pick Ups: The Complete Series 1 and 2
Personality and Power
Roller-Coaster
Luck of the Devil
Making Friends with Hitler
The End
Hitler
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Praise for To Hell and Back

A great achievement ... There could hardly be a more judicious guide to this bloody terrain ... a stark lesson in man's capacity for evil

Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times

A triumph ... one of a tiny handful of historians whose books will still be read in 100 years

Laurence Rees, The Mail on Sunday

Chilling epic-size history ... should be required reading

Harold Evans, The New York Times

The story of how the Old World plunged toward hell for 30 years ... There is no man better qualified than Kershaw to take us through the dark valleys of the world wars and the two sombre intervening decades ... fair-minded, deeply researched and highly readable

Brendan Simms, Wall Street Journal

We are in the hands of a master historian

Nigel Jones, Spectator

Few authors would have the ability, and perhaps the determination, to take on the history of both world wars and the connecting decades at this level of sophistication, depth and breadth

Robert Tombs, The Times

Authoritative

Nicholas Shakespeare, Telegraph

Kershaw leads his readers through this complex history in a clear and compelling manner

Joanna Bourke, Prospect