For sophomore/senior-level courses in 20th Century Europe, Europe Since 1914, Contemporary Europe. Earlier editions have also been used in advanced (A.P.) high school courses on European history. Clearly written and organized, this classic survey of European political, social, economic, and intellectual history covers events throughout the Continent from 1914 to the present within a broadly comparative context, treating Europe as a single unit. The author begins with a view of Europe in 1914 with an emphasis on Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean as well as on Western Europe. New edition features thoroughly updated final chapter with the latest research on contemporary topics.

Camus, Sartre, and Beauvoir in France. Eich, Richter, and Boell in Germany. Pavese, Levi, and Silone in Italy. These are among the defenders of human dignity whose lives and work are explored in this widely encompassing work. James D. Wilkinson examines for the first time the cultural impact of the anti-Fascist literary movements in Europe and the search of intellectuals for renewal-for social change through moral endeavor-during World War II and its immediate aftermath. It was a period of hope, Wilkinson asserts, and not of despair as is so frequently assumed. Out of the shattering experience of war evolved the bracing experience of resistance and a reaffirmation of faith in reason. Wilkinson discovers a spiritual revolution taking place during these years of engagement and views the participants, the engages, as heirs of the Enlightenment. Drawing on a wide range of published writing as well as interviews with many intellectuals who were active during the 1940s, Wilkinson explains in the fullest context ever attempted their shared opposition to tyranny during the war and their commitment to individual freedom and social justice afterward. Wilkinson has written a cultural history for our time. His wise and subtle understanding of the long-range significance of the engages is a reminder that the reassertion of humanist values is as important as political activism by intellectuals.