The Lights That Failed by Zara Steiner

[aiwac]

I know that strictly speaking this is a post-WWI book, but it very much gives a description of the 1920s as the "post-war" years rather than just the break between WWI and WWII. It really gives us a sense of the devastation and complicated problems that faced everyone after the peace treaties were signed. I think it's as important to understand this as the oceans of analysis of the July crisis; it describes the world people tried to rebuild after the guns fell silent.

Has anyone on the forum read it? I'd like to know what you thought.

[David Ridgus]

I haven't read it, although I have used extracts as source material for lessons on the interwar years with GCSE and AS students.

Steiner is generally regarded as the current leading historian of the interwar period, a position she cemented with her follow up to this book, The Triumph of the Dark.

You could certainly make a case that Margaret MacMillan's book The War that Ended Peace and Steiner's The Lights that Failed neatly bookend the Great War. Now if Strachan would just get a lick on and finish his three volumes on the War itself...

David