Dance of the Furies - Michael S. Neiberg

Dance of the Furies
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Autor: Michael S. Neiberg

 Wydawnictwo: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674725935
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Format: ...
Oprawa: miękka
Stron: 336
Data wydania: 2013-10-01
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The common explanation for the outbreak of World War I depicts Europe as a minefield of nationalism, needing only the slightest pressure to set off an explosion of passion that would rip the continent apart. But in a crucial reexamination of the outbreak of violence, Michael Neiberg shows that ordinary Europeans, unlike their political and military leaders, neither wanted nor expected war during the fateful summer of 1914. By training his eye on the ways that people outside the halls of power reacted to the rapid onset and escalation of the fighting, Neiberg dispels the notion that Europeans were rabid nationalists intent on mass slaughter. He reveals instead a complex set of allegiances that cut across national boundaries. Neiberg marshals letters, diaries, and memoirs of ordinary citizens across Europe to show that the onset of war was experienced as a sudden, unexpected event. As they watched a minor diplomatic crisis erupt into a continental bloodbath, they expressed shock, revulsion, and fear. But when bargains between belligerent governments began to crumble under the weight of conflict, public disillusionment soon followed. Yet it was only after the fighting acquired its own horrible momentum that national hatreds emerged under the pressure of mutually escalating threats, wartime atrocities, and intense government propaganda. "Dance of the Furies" gives voice to a generation who found themselves compelled to participate in a ghastly, protracted orgy of violence they never imagined would come to pass. "Dance of the Furies", becomes at once the new pinnacle in brief studies of the coming of the First World War..."Dance of the Furies" is far-ranging, adroitly written, and consistently fascinating...[Neiberg] uses an incredibly wide array of contemporary sources to shore up his point that when the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Serbian teenager Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, virtually nobody thought the event would lead to general war..."Dance of the Furies" brings its readers right to the edge of that Armageddon but does not plunge. We hear tales of bank collapses and hate-propaganda, and we see the idealism of all combatants quickly shredded, but the epic carnage and attrition, the big-scale generalship and diplomacy, all lies ahead when this superb volume concludes. Instead what Michael Neiberg has given us is a vast chorus of disbelieving voices, the shopkeepers, professors, poets, and farmers of half a dozen countries voicing their increasing alarm as their nations slipped toward the unthinkable. Assembling and synthesizing such a vast amount of material would be impressive enough; that Neiberg makes it all so darkly compelling is testament to a writing talent the discipline of history badly needs. Future studies of the First World War by this author will be eagerly devoured.--Steve Donoghue"Open Letters Monthly" (05/01/2011)

Książka "Dance of the Furies"
Michael S. Neiberg