The Morbid Age: Britain and the Crisis of Civilisation, 1919 - 1939

(Paperback)

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British intellectual life between the wars stood at the heart of modernity. The Morbid Age opens a window on to this creative but anxious era, the golden age of the public intellectual and scientist- Arnold Toynbee, Aldous and Julian Huxley, H. G. Wells, Marie Stopes and a host of others. Yet, as Richard Overy argues, a striking characteristic of so many of the ideas that emerged from this new age - from eugenics to Freud's unconscious, to modern ideas of pacifism and world government - was the fear that the West was facing a possibly terminal crisis of civilization. Ultimately, Overy shows, the coming of war was almost welcomed as a way to resolve the contradictions and anxieties of this period, a war in which it was believed civilization would be either saved or utterly destroyed.

Reviews

Wonderfully compelling ... never less than a delight to read ... supremely well informed, thoughtful and enjoyable -- Dominic Sandbrook * Evening Standard *
Overy is one of the great historians of the second world war -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *
It's difficult to do justice to the richness of Overy's account -- Noel Malcolm * Saturday Telegraph *
It is hard to imagine anyone recording these times more exactly and more intelligently, or with greater insight and scholarship, than Overy has in this book -- Simon Heffer * Telegraph *
a rewarding book, and a highly readable one -- John Gross * Standpoint *

Author Bio

Richard Overy is Professor of History at King's College, London. He is the author of numerous books on the Third Reich and the Second World War, including War and Economy in the Third Reich, Why the Allies Won, Russia's War, The Battle and Interrogations. He was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2000 and in 2001 was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for his contribution to military history.