The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s - Softcover

"Dark Valley" as a phrase was coined first by the Japanese to refer to the desperate years of chaotic depression that followed the 1929 slump. But, as Piers Brendon's epic history of the same name vividly demonstrates, it was apt to describe any of the world's leading nations of the time--the crippled, traumatized European powers, a moody, solitary U.S., Stalin's outcast Soviet Union, and volatile, upstart Japan--with varying degrees of severity and fascinatingly contrasting outcomes. With no dishonor to those who endured the unspeakable traumas of the First World War, reading Brendon's scholarly tome leaves little scope to argue with the assertion, made by Leon Blum, among others, that the economic crisis and its effects were as traumatic as the "war to end all wars." Worse was to come, for sure, but the events that led to the "chasm" of the Second World War still boggle the mind--from our safe distance it is difficult to comprehend that this actually came to pass, yet at the same time the whole era seems to be engulfed by a fatalistic air of inevitability. In many ways, the insane dance of rampant ideological forces and economic desperation unleashed across the sphere make for the more gripping history, and in Brendon's hands, the cast of thousands is skillfully evoked, while the facts are judiciously evaluated, in a rolling narrative through the tribulations of the era. This is first-class historical writing, but certainly not for the faint-hearted. --Alisdair Bowles, Amazon.co.uk

"The story of the 1930s has been told many times, but Brendon succeeds magnificently in breathing fresh life into the narrative . . . His text is a delight to read, a literary triumph sparkling with moments of real humour and compassion, sombre where it needs to be. Brendon is a master of the swift pen portrait, the telling anecdote, the curious footnotes to history that tell us more than a page of dusty scholarship."
-- The Sunday Telegraph

"Piers Brendon's long book has such brilliance and narrative power, and contains so much fascinating detail that reading it has all the excitement of novelty."
-- Evening Standard

"Historians are seldom thought of as elegant stylists, let alone as comic writers of the first rank. Piers Brendon is both . . . [He has] an eye for the telling detail that puts most novelists to shame."
-- Sunday Express

"Piers Brendon's book, let's say it at once, is a tour de force . . . The book could hardly be better."
-- The Scotsman

"Lively, fascinating . . . In telling his tale of the Thirties, Brendon paints a vivid and vigorous canvas . . . His character sketches of the principal players are sharp, perceptive, and often very funny."
-- The Observer

"Distinctive and enthralling . . . Brendon's sweep and range are breathtakingly global. His story takes in everything and everywhere that matters between the 20th century's two world wars, moving with knowledge, insight, and wit . . . His detail--brilliant, cinematic, utterly illuminating--is arranged with a canny storyteller's knack. No other historical account I know can rival this fluently possessive sequence."
-- Financial Times

"A cleverly sustained, and often moving account . . . familiar in its substance but fresh in its imagery."
-- The Sunday Times [London]

"[An] excellent survey of the Thirties . . . Brendon tells the story of this enormous and weighty subject with great skill and good humour."
-- Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad

"Endlessly fascinating."
-- Literary Review