To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 is a fundamental work by the British historian Ian Kershaw, originally published in 2015. A decade later, rereading it takes on a different intensity in a world of escalating armed conflicts, with reckless projections and leaders who fan the flames instead of extinguishing them. That book was the first volume of the Penguin History of Europe Series, whose second installment, Roller-Coaster: Europe 1950–2017, addresses the postwar period extending into our own time.
Kershaw analyzes how Europe—the continent that dominated the world at the beginning of the 20th century—plunged into self-destruction in barely three decades. The work focuses on four interconnected crises: the explosion of ethno-racial violence, culminating in the Holocaust and massive ethnic cleansings; economic instability, marked by the Great Depression and hyperinflation in Germany; acute class conflicts—the clash between Bolshevism and counterrevolutionary forces; and extreme nationalism, with the rise of fascism and Nazism.
Unlike other works focused exclusively on military matters, Kershaw incorporates everyday life, exploring how the civilian population interpreted and suffered events, as well as the culture of society, analyzing how the intellectual and social climate enabled the rise of totalitarian regimes. The author applies the concept of “working toward the Führer” to explain how state structures and ideological extremism feed off one another in a catastrophic radicalization that culminates in the enthronement of a totalitarian dictatorship.
This history of the 20th century begins with the outbreak of the World War I in 1914 and concludes with the onset of the Cold War in 1949, when Europe is left divided after the bloodiest “descent” in its history.
In addition to writing one of the most comprehensive biographies of Adolf Hitler and several books on the Nazi regime in Germany, Kershaw published in 2022 the essay Personality and Power: Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe. In this work, the author grapples with a recurring question among historians: whether great leaders made the 20th century or whether they were products of their circumstances.
Kershaw rejects the “great man” theory and argues that individual personality is a crucial factor, but only when combined with systemic crises and support bases that allow a leader to attain and exercise extraordinary power.
He explains this in an engaging interview conducted by Mariano Schuster in El pasado no está muerto (The Past Is Not Dead) published by Siglo XXI, (2025). Kershaw maintains that charisma is not merely an innate trait, but something granted by society and context in moments of desperation. He also introduces the concept of “negative greatness” for figures such as Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, acknowledging their massive and catastrophic historical impact without thereby validating their morality.
In Personality and Power, Kershaw divides his analysis into twelve interpretive essays on key figures who shaped Europe’s trajectory, classifying them as dictators and democratic leaders: Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Josip Broz Tito and Francisco Franco among the former; Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Helmut Kohl among the latter.
Some leaders are the consequences of these major “epochal crises,” and others, emerging from them, manage to overcome them by guiding their peoples from war to peace. In the words of Erich Fromm, leaders of anticipatory change and leaders of catastrophic change. Today, the former seem to abound while the latter are in short supply.
*Text originally published in the newspaper Clarín, Argentina.
Autor
Political scientist and journalist. Editor-in-chief of Op-ed section at Clarín newspaper. Professor at the Univ. Nacional de Tres de Febrero ang guest professor at UADE and FLACSO-Argentina. Author of: "Braden or Perón. La historia oculta"(2011) and "Detrás de Perón" (2013).
