History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century Paperback - 2005

First line

ending progress, in one untrammeled social future" (Einstein 1947, 347). Karl Marx expressed this way of thinking in the preface to Das Kapital when he compared Britain to continental Europe.

From the rear cover

"I do not think it possible to understand the troubles and instabilities of Central and Eastern Europe today without reading Ivan T.Berend, the finest comparative historian of this region. In History Derailed, he has produced a characteristically lucid and masterly synthesis of its economic, social, political and cultural history in the 'long nineteenth century' which every reader of his much admired study of inter-war Central and Eastern Europe, Decades of Crisis, will need to read, and anyone interested in the continuing problems of the region will want to read."--Eric J. Hobsbawm, Emeritus Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of London and author of many histories including The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991

"This multi-faceted and lavishly illustrated analytical history of Central-East Europe before World War I, written by the world's foremost scholar of the region, explains how and why the paths of modernization and development diverged so markedly between East and West Europe. Ivan T. Berend's tour de force of historical interpretation must be essential reading for anyone seeking a true perspective on modern Europe."--Derek H. Aldcroft, University Fellow in the Department of Economic & Social Science, University of Leicester