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Volume 14
New German Historical Perspectives
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Political Crisis in Central Europe in the Interwar Period and Today
Temporality, Semantics, and Logic of Crises in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania
Edited by Martin Schulze Wessel
288 pages, bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-83695-631-0 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (August 2026)
eISBN 978-1-83695-632-7 eBook Not Yet Published
Reviews
“A well-researched and comprehensive exploration of the crises of democracy and capitalism in Central Europe throughout the 20th century, drawing insightful parallels to contemporary issues... The essays are well-written, thoroughly researched, and provide valuable contributions to the field of modern European history. The scholarly rigor and depth of analysis make this volume a valuable resource for scholars and students of Central European history and politics.” • Rudolf Kučera, Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Description
Linking contemporary concerns about democratic fragility with historical analysis, this volume examines the crisis and failure of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe during the interwar period from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. The contributions explore political culture, constitutional traditions, religion, violence, and crisis discourse in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Rather than focusing narrowly on institutional breakdown, the authors emphasize long-term cultural legacies, narratives of crisis, and exclusionary identities that undermined democratic pluralism. Interwar Europe functioned as a laboratory of democracy whose experiences offer critical insights into the challenges facing liberal democracies today.
Martin Schulze Wessel is a German historian and professor of Eastern and Southeastern European history at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich since 2003. His research focuses on the history of Ukraine, Russia, Poland and Eastern Europe, as well as religious history and imperial history. Since 2004, he has been Director of the Collegium Carolinum. He is a co-founder of the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission. From 2012 to 2016, he was chairman of the Association of German Historians. His most recent publication, The Overlooked Nation, is a study of the interrelated German-Ukrainian relations since the 19th century.
