Only by understanding Central and Eastern Europe's turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century can we hope to make sense of the conflicts and crises that have followed World War II and, after that, the collapse of Soviet-controlled state socialism. Ivan Berend looks closely at the fateful decades preceding World War II and at twelve countries whose absence from the roster of major players was enough in itself, he says, to precipitate much of the turmoil.

As waves of modernization swept over Europe, the less developed countries on the periphery tried with little or no success to imitate Western capitalism and liberalism. Instead they remained, as Berend shows, rural, agrarian societies notable for the tenacious survival of feudal and aristocratic institutions. In that context of frustration and disappointment, rebellion was inevitable. Berend leads the reader skillfully through the maze of social, cultural, economic, and political changes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Soviet Union, showing how every path ended in dictatorship and despotism by the start of World War II.

Ivan T. Berend, Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, is former President of the International Committee of Historical Sciences and former President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1995-2000). He has published widely on the economy and culture of Central and Eastern Europe.

"Ivan Berend reminds us in his masterful history of Central and Eastern Europe that in order to understand the present state of this region, we must understand its past, particularly the oft-neglected years between the two world wars. . . . Berend skillfully weaves economics, politics, and culture together in telling his story of this region in the years between the two world wars. . . the best account now available of these turbulent years in the history of Eastern and Central Europe."—Virginia Quarterly Review

"Berend identifies the influences behind the political misadventure of central and Eastern Europe during the interwar period. His range of analysis is immense, from economic history ot visual arts and music to ethnic conflict."—Foreign Affairs

"Berend's book is the broadest synthesis of the modern social, economic, and cultural history of the region that we possess, probably in any language. Much of the narrative is masterful, and of an unparalleled richness, both in fact and insight. This work displays well the broad erudition of its author."—John Connelly, Journal of Economic History

"Like Eric Hobsbawm's masterful histories of economic, social, and cultural change in Europe, Berend's book covers a vast variety of changes, and convincingly shows that they were all related."—Daniel Chirot, author of Modern Tyrants

"A dozen fermenting societies floundering through choppy times are brilliantly brought together in Ivan Berend's informed, lucid and readable account of Central and Eastern Europe before World War II. Berend has achieved a splendid synthesis not to be missed by specialists, yet accessible to the general reader."—Eugen Weber, University of California, Los Angeles

"Berend's work will find an eager audience of European historians, specialists in Central and Eastern Europe, and educated readers among the general population."—David F. Good, author of The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire, 1750-1914