The Twilight Years The Paradox of Britain Between the Wars

by Overy, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780143118114
• ISBN10: 0143118110
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-30
• Publisher: Penguin Books

Summary

"Thought-provoking and illuminating...Overy's study of British culture between the wars is absorbing and unexpectedly moving." -The New York Times Book Review Original, entertaining, and ever-surprising, The Twilight Yearstells the story of how an abiding fear of war influenced English life in the aftermath of World War I. Britain had become a laboratory for modern thought and experimentations, from eugenics to Freud's unconscious. And drawing upon these innovative ideas and concepts, intellectuals, politicians, scientists, and artists-among them Arnold Toynbee, Aldous Huxley, and H.G. Wells-grappled with a creeping fear that the West was staring down the end of civilization. The Twilight Yearsspeaks to the frightening power of ideas in a rapidly changing world.

Author Biography

Richard Overy is professor of modern history at the University of Exeter. He is an award-winning author of numerous books, including The Dictators and Why the Allies Won. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Preface and Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Note on Currency	p. xv
Britain 1919-1939: A Chronological Introduction	p. xvii
Introduction: Cassandras and Jeremiahs	p. 1
Decline and Fall	p. 9
The Death of Capitalism	p. 50
A Sickness in the Racial Body	p. 93
Medicine and Poison: Psychoanalysis and Social Dismay	p. 136
Why War?	p. 175
Challenge to Death	p. 219
Utopian Politics: Cure or Disease?	p. 265
'The Voyage of the Death Ship': War and the Fate of the World	p. 314
A Morbid Age	p. 363
Notes	p. 385
Bibliography and sources	p. 474
Index	p. 501
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