A Low, Dishonest Decade: The Great Powers, Eastern Europe and the Economic Origins of World War II, 1930-1941

(Paperback)

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Almost all written histories of the period leading up to World War II stress political, diplomatic, and ideological conflicts. Arguing that previous historians have confused effect for cause and have considered these conflicts without reference to the systemic problems that provoked them. Paul Hehn focuses on the fierce rivalries among the Great Powers in the relentless search for markets during the world depression of the 1930s. These rivalries were exacerbated particularly in southeastern Europe where Germany dominated the economies and trade arenas of its neighbors in a semi-colonial manner. In A Low Dishonest Decade, Hehn surveys the five Major Powers and all the Eastern European countries from the Baltic to Turkey. But he primarily canvases the economic situations in strategic locations like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

Reviews

"A richly detailed study of the trade conflicts sparked by Eastern Europe, particularly the Balkans, in the decade preceding the Second World War."German Studies Review
"Written by a child of the era,' this book is announced as a correction to the two major diplomatic interpretations of the origins of WW II: Gerhard Weinberg's two-volume Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany, which stresses Nazi ideology and Hitler's primary responsibility for the outbreak of WW II, and A.J.P. Taylor's The Origins of the Second World War, which places Hitler and Nazi Germany within a malfunctioning international system. Using earlier studies by Dietmar Petzina, Hans-Jrgen Schroeder, and Timothy W. Mason and his own extensive research in unpublished British, French, German, Italian, Polish, US, and Yugoslav diplomatic records as well as in a wealth of published primary and secondary sources, Hehn argues that the political, ideological, and diplomatic maneuvers that took place during Auden's low, dishonest decade' masked a fundamental Anglo-German imperialist' struggle for raw materials, markets, and military, and economic hegemony in Eastern Europe....The overall result is an ambitious, sprawling study, laced with opinions and statistics that provide a materialist explanation for Hitler's aggressiveness and Western appeasement in the 1930s."Choice * Choice *
"Fixing on Eastern Europe as the focus of the fierce contest for markets, Hehn sees economic factors as at least as crucial in the post-Versailles world as military, political and ideological ones. Although this focus downplays the obsession with racist ideology that drove Hitler, Hehn's imperialist theme is compelling....Hehn's quotes, sometimes private ones, are withering. His analysis targets not only the usual villains but the failures, hypocrisies, greed and venality of England, France and the United States, and powerfully argues for their role in bringing on WW II."Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly *

Author Bio

Paul N. Hehn was Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York at Brockport, USA. He was a veteran of World War II (the Pacific Theater) and the author of A Low Dishonest Decade (Continuum, 2006).