Why paternalism leads to socialism to fascism to totalitarianism.

Three new deals : reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939 Wolfgang Schivelbusch ; translated by Jefferson Chase New York : Metropolitan Books, 2006 Hardcover. 1st ed. and printing. 242 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. [193]-229) and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

Today Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal is regarded as the democratic ideal, the positive American response to an economic crisis that propelled Germany and Italy toward Fascism. Yet in the 1930s, shocking as it may seem, these regimes were hardly considered antithetical. Now, Wolfgang Schivelbusch investigates the shared elements of these three “new deals” to offer a striking explanation for the popularity of Europe’s totalitarian systems.

Returning to the Depression, Schivelbusch traces the emergence of a new type of state: bolstered by mass propaganda, led by a charismatic figure, and projecting stability and power. He uncovers stunning similarities among the three regimes: the symbolic importance of gigantic public works programs like the TVA dams and the German autobahn, which not only put people back to work but embodied the state’s authority; the seductive persuasiveness of Roosevelt’s fireside chats and Mussolini’s radio talks; the vogue for monumental architecture stamped on Washington, as on Berlin; and the omnipresent banners enlisting citizens as loyal followers of the state.

Far from equating Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini or minimizing their acute differences, Schivelbusch proposes that the populist and paternalist qualities common to their states hold the key to the puzzling allegiance once granted to Europe’s most tyrannical regimes.

Does anyone else notice the dual ascendancy of socialism and totalitarianism? Dark Continent presents both a comprehensive history of twentieth-century Europe and a provocative vision of its future.

Dark continent : Europe’s twentieth century Mark Mazower  Europe , History , 20th century  New York : A.A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1999  Europe , History , 20th century Hardcover. 1st American ed. xvi, 487 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 417-449) and index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG

Dark Continent is a searching history of Europe’s most brutal century. Stripping away the comforting myths and illusions that we have grown up with since the Second World War, Mark Mazower presents an unflinching account of a continent locked in a finely balanced struggle between tolerance and racial extermination, imperial ambition and national self-determination, liberty and the tyrannies of Right and Left. It is an attempt to trace the origins of “Western values”–the ideological terms we now live by–and to ask what remains of the struggles of previous generations.

Instead of seeing Europe as the natural home of freedom and democracy, Mazower argues that it was a frequently nightmarish laboratory for social and political engineering, inventing and reinventing itself through war, revolution and ideological competition. Fascism and communism should be regarded not as exceptions to the general rule of democracy, but as alternative forms of government that attracted many Europeans by offering different solutions to the challenges of the modern world. By 1940 the prospects for democratic government looked bleak, and Europe’s future seemed to lie in Hitler’s hands. Yet freedom was given another chance with the defeat of the Nazi New Order, and it prevailed decades later across the continent with the collapse of the Iron Curtain.

Mazower’s extraordinarily skilled and insightful analysis provides us with a new perspective on the events of the century now drawing to a close. From the beginnings of the First World War to the establishment of the European Union, he depicts a battle for hearts and minds that reached more deeply than ever before into the daily lives of ordinary people. Vividly written and vigorously argued, Dark Continent presents both a comprehensive history of twentieth-century Europe and a provocative vision of its future.