Introduction: A Peaceful Europe? Negotiating Peace in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The introduction to this special issue on peace in twentieth-century Europe develops a novel interpretation of twentieth-century European history. Rather than focusing on the question of the impact of war and violence within European societies, it seeks to examine what we can gain from exploring how peace was established and maintained in the wake of wars in various European societies. In particular, it focuses on the manifold ways in which different social and international actors negotiated peace, both literally and symbolically. Taken together, the contributions to this special issue thus present a much more complex picture of twentieth-century Europe than the one of a ‘Dark Continent’ (Mark Mazower) ravaged by violence or that propagated by European institutions of a peaceful Europe.