This narrative of continent-wide chaos makes it easier to understand why order came to seem a supremely desirable objective in 1930s Europe, trumping freedom ... it helps us understand why few wars reach tidy conclusions: once a society has suspended its instinctive, social and legal prejudice against killing, it often proves hard to restore. (Max Hastings
The Sunday Times)
Gerwarth fills
The Vanquished with illuminating quotations and stories that pull together a complex narrative about the uneasy peace of the late Twenties and shine a piercing light into darkened corners of history ...
The Vanquished is an unnerving reminder of how stubbornly some geopolitical fault-lines endure (Sinclair McKay
The Telegraph)
A mixture of fast-paced narrative and fluent analysis of the turmoil that unfolded in the lands of the four shattered empires, as well as Greece and Italy, either side of the November 1918 armistice on the western front.
Gerwarth demonstrates with an impressive concentration of detail that in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe the carnage of the first world war by no means came to an end, as it did for the British and French, in late 1918.
(Tony Barber
Financial Times)
Gerwarth has synthesized an enormous range of primary and secondary sources in half a dozen languages. Combining a big-picture overview with close-up detail - we hear the voices of soldiers, politicians, civilians - Gerwarth has written a vivid if disturbing account of a crucial period in 20th century history (Matthew Price
National)
Searing and vivid ... a timely reminder that the roots of century-long violence can be traced back to the cataclysmic end of the Great War (Richard Overy
Literary Review)
A thorough explanation for the rise of the nationalist and fascist groups who set the stage for World War II. (
Kirkus Reviews)
Gerwarth's fascinating and finely crafted book is a rich combination of military, political, cultural and social history. He makes good use of literary sources and witness testimony to bring the events he narrates to life ... an impressive work of highly accessible scholarship (Geoffrey Roberts
Irish Times)
This is an important and compelling book with a fascinating and chilling narrative ... Gerwarth reveals how the forgotten postwar violence comprised a key step on Europe's descent into darkness. (Alexander Watson
BBC History Magazine)
While Gerwarth's warfare theories are cogent and convincing, he never loses sight of the human dimension. He skillfully avoids the danger of getting bogged down in a mass of detail, livening up his narrative by using contemporary quotes from politicians, soldiers and writers. One mark of a good history book is that it allows the reader to see familiar events from a new perspective. In this respect,
The Vanquished is an exceptional history book. (Andrew Lynch
Sunday Post Business Magazine)
[Gerwarth] shines a light on what is, from a western European point of view, a somewhat obscure and relatively short period of time ... from the layman's vantage point, it is so well written that it reads like a novel. Tragically, for the people killed, wounded and forced to flee from their homes, it is not. This book is well worth the read. (Frank MacGabhann
Irish Independent)
