As the 20th century recedes, how should its history be written? The 1920s and 1930s were a time of paradox, of great conflict and contradiction. If those years were the crucible of a new metropolitan modernity and its possibilities, what were the forward-moving forces and ideas? What were their effects and where did they lead? The Modernist Wish provides a comprehensive, non-hierarchical and integrated history of Europe’s early 20th century across the whole of the continent. Uniting social, cultural-intellectual, and political history alongside military-strategic and geopolitical dimensions, Geoff Eley examines the distinctiveness of early-20th century modernity. He draws out the exceptional character of the interwar years and their longer-run social and political fallout, based in the excitements of metropolitan living, the progressive achievements of an industrialized machine world, and the material possibilities for fashioning new forms of selfhood. In presenting a truly European history for our time, this study encompasses both the grand narratives of large-scale transformations, and the everyday realities of individual lived experiences.

Geoff Eley is Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History Emeritus at the University of Michigan. His specialisms include modern European history; nationalism and fascism; the European Left; historiography; and social and cultural theory. Previous publications include Reshaping the German Right (1980); Forging Democracy (2002); A Crooked Line (2005); Nazism as Fascism (2013); and History Made Conscious (2023).

The Modernist Wish is available from CUP from May 2026 and is part one of a two-volume history of the twentieth century

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