Review «An indomitable violence»- Archives of History

Review released in 2020 Indomitable violence. The European 20th century, by the historian Julián Casanova. Far from becoming another compendium on the European history of the last century, the work brings historiographical freshness, having the pattern of violence displayed in society as the axis of its analysis.

Data sheet

What we think of “An indomitable violence” in Archivos de la Historia

From the cover to the last page, the work Indomitable violence. The European 20th century It has been edited in a very careful format. In its external appearance, it gives all the attention to the title that will immerse the reader in the pages that follow. It is accompanied by an allegorical figure of what was the spiral of violence in Europe in the 20th century: a gas mask.

In addition to photographs, it includes notes at the end of the book where the reader can understand the degree of study and contrasted sources used by the historian, marks of the good work and distinctive element of the rigor and work that these pages carry behind. An onomastic index is added to it that speeds up searches on some theme, fact or character. It also contains a specific chronology on violence, which begins in 1868 with the last public executions and ends in 2019 with the exhumation of the remains of Francisco Franco.

Julian the historian Casanova has managed to synthesize in almost 400 pages the history of a violent Europe. One of the fundamental notes of the book, which enriches its analysis and ensures its rigor, is the multidirectional gaze projected through the narrative. It’s quite a journey, so from north to south, but also from east to west and vice versa.

Violence is the thread the conductor that supports the story, as it became “a notorious feature of the policies in almost all European countries” (Casanova, 2020: 175). In effect, the violence or violences, in their multiple facets and typologies, were linked to the “major events”. Now, this book throws a vision that goes beyond focusing its gaze on the great wars or “public” conflicts.

Something remarkable is that it introduces other objects of attention of rituals of violence that previously the canonical story had not paid enough attention to: women. And related to the latter, a specific violence towards them which, marked by the context of the time and its dynamics, had its target in the bodies of women.

In addition to constituting an open range where readers are constantly invited to delve into other specific aspects, it is a work that reflects on the chronological scenarios and the continuity of violent practices. In the same way, denies that the European history of the 20th century can be divided into two halves. On the one hand, a first based on the warlike nature of the two world wars; on the other, a second marked by pacifism and absolute consensus. Far from the latter, the dictatorships of the West after the world war indicate that society continued to be submerged in a tornado of violence.

So do we recommend it?

It’s a excellent work that brings a new approach about the manifestations of violence, looking for its genealogy and the impregnation of its dynamics throughout the 20th century. Julian Casanova unravels the knot of violence and builds an entire explanatory network of its dynamics, embedded in a transnational context.

The book it reflects the violent context in which the Europe we see today was built. Many of the issues addressed inevitably cast glances towards our immediate present, where history and memory(s) come together and build the perception of the past. This book, from the rigor, helps to do so. In addition to the interest of its contents and the way in which they are presented, it is worth highlighting the potential educational value that can be used as a whole, in view of the teaching of history.

For all these reasons, and for the historiographic richness reflected, we can only recommend this work and encourage readers to discover for themselves the result of the work.