The peace treaties represented an almost impossible attempt to solve the
problems caused by a murderous world war. In The Lights that Failed:
European International History 1919-1933, part of the Oxford History of
Modern Europe series, Steiner challenges the common assumption that the
Treaty of Versailles led to the opening of a second European war. In a
radically original way, this book characterizes the 1920s not as a
frustrated prelude to a second global conflict but as a fascinating
decade in its own right, when politicians and diplomats strove to
re-assemble a viable European order. Steiner examines the efforts that
failed but also those which gave hope for future promise, many of which
are usually underestimated, if not ignored. She shows that an
equilibrium was achieved, attained between a partial American withdrawal
from Europe and the self-imposed constraints which the Soviet system
imposed on exporting revolution. The stabilization painfully achieved in
Europe reached
it fragile limits after 1925, even prior to the financial crises that
engulfed the continent. The hinge years between the great crash of 1929
and Hitler's achievement of power in 1933 devastatingly altered the
balance between nationalism and internationalism. This wide-ranging
study helps us grasp the decisive stages in this process.
In a second volume, The Triumph of the Night, Steiner will examine the
immediate lead up to the Second World War and its early years.
