9 results for "World History"

Masquerade: the incredible true story of how George Soros' father outsmarted the Gestapo

Soros, Tivadar
The Nazis came late to Hungary because, until early 1944, Germany and Hungary were allies. But when they did arrive, their orders were to put the "Final Solution" into effect with deliberate speed. Soros, a Jewish lawyer in Budapest, secured fake Christian identities for himself, his wife, and his two sons following the German invasion of Hungary on March 19, 1944. In a narrative reminiscent of the great Primo Levi, Soros recounts his experiences with a beguiling humor, deep humanity, and a wisdom that is humbling. Superbly translated by Humphrey Tonkin, Masquerade is.
Arcade Pub 2011-03-15 275 pages

The spies of Warsaw: a novel

Furst, Alan
War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, in Warsaw, the new military attaché, Colonel Jean-François Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of the city. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations. Risking his life, Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amid an extraordinary cast of venal characters, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed --
Random House 2008 266 pages

The lights that failed: European international history, 1919-1933

Steiner, Zara
The peace treaties represented an almost impossible attempt to solve the problems caused by a murderous world war. In The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933, part of the Oxford History of Modern Europe series, Steiner challenges the common assumption that the Treaty of Versailles led to the opening of a second European war. In a radically original way, this book characterizes the 1920s not as a frustrated prelude to a second global conflict but as a fascinating decade in its own right, when politicians and diplomats strove to re-assemble a viable European order. Steiner examines the efforts that failed but also those which gave hope for future promise, many of which are usually underestimated, if not ignored. She shows that an equilibrium was achieved, attained between a partial American withdrawal from Europe and the self-imposed constraints which the Soviet system imposed on exporting revolution. The stabilization painfully achieved in Europe reached it fragile limits after 1925, even prior to the financial crises that engulfed the continent. The hinge years between the great crash of 1929 and Hitler's achievement of power in 1933 devastatingly altered the balance between nationalism and internationalism. This wide-ranging study helps us grasp the decisive stages in this process. In a second volume, The Triumph of the Night , Steiner will examine the immediate lead up to the Second World War and its early years.
Oxford University Press 2005 938 pages

1941: the year that keeps returning

Goldstein, Slavko
The Year That Keeps Returning is Goldstein's astonishing historical memoir of that fateful year--when the Ustasha, the pro-fascist nationalists, were brought to power in Croatia by the Nazi occupiers of Yugoslavia. On April 10, when the German troops marched into Zagreb, the Croatian capital, they were greeted as liberators by the Croats. Three days later, Ante Pavelić, the future leader of the Independent State of Croatia, returned from exile in Italy and Goldstein's father, the proprietor of a leftist bookstore in Karlovac--a beautiful old city fifty miles from the capital--was arrested along with other local Serbs, communists, and Yugoslav sympathizers. Goldstein was only thirteen years old, and he would never see his father again. More than fifty years later, Goldstein seeks to piece together the facts of his father's last days. The moving narrative threads stories of family, friends, and other ordinary people who lived through those dark times together with personal memories and an impressive depth of carefully researched historic details. The other central figure in Goldstein's heartrending tale is his mother--a strong, resourceful woman who understands how to act decisively in a time of terror in order to keep her family alive.
New York Review Books 2013-11-05 604 pages

The Green Shirts and the others: a history of Fascism in Hungary and Romania

Nagy-Talavera, Nicholas M.
This book is a newly revised edition of Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera’s classic work The Green Shirts and the Others published by the Hoover Institution Press in 1970. This book is the standard work in English on the history of fascism in Romania and Hungary. The Green Shirts and the Others is the first comprehensive and comparative work in English on the history of the fascist movements in Hungary and Romania. The author presents an objective account of the history of the two countries from 1918 to 1945 and the role of fascist movements during these years. He considers the rise of these movements, the Arrow Cross in Hungary and the Legion of the Archangel Michael in Romania. He considers their evolution and growth during the interwar period, as well as during the tragic periods in which each movement came to power in its respective country. The author then draws conclusions and parallels from the comparative history of the two movements. The author, Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera, was a leading American expert on the history of Hungary and Romania during the interwar period and World War II. He was a professor of history at California State University, Chico. His other books include Nicolae Iorga: A Biography.
Center for Romanian Studies 2021 548 pages

Complicated complicity: European collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II

Martina Bitunjac,Julius H. Schoeps
"Complicated Complicity is about the forms taken, motives and spectrum of actions of European collaboration with the Nazis. State authorities, local military organizations and individual players in different countries and areas including France, Scandinavia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Greece, Italy, Portugal and the countries of the former Yugoslavia are discussed in the context of the history of World War II, the history of occupation and everyday life and as an essential influencing factor in the Holocaust. New forms of right-wing populism, nationalism and growing intolerance of Jewish fellow citizens and minorities have made such historically sensitive studies considerably more difficult in many countries today. In this time of increasing historical revisionism in Europe, such elucidating discourse is particularly relevant."--Page 4 of cover.
De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2021 350 pages