Europe's Third World: The European Periphery in the Interwar YearsRoutledge, 2016 M04 29 - 229 pages Economic historians have perennially addressed the intriguing question of comparative development, asking why some countries develop much faster and further than others. Focusing primarily on Europe between 1914 and 1939, this present volume explores the development of thirteen countries that could be said to be categorised as economically backward during this period: Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and Yugoslavia. These countries are linked, not only in being geographically on Europe's periphery, but all shared high agrarian components and income levels much lower than those enjoyed in western European countries. The study shows that by 1918 many of these countries had structural characteristics which either relegated them to a low level of development or reflected their economic backwardness, characteristics that were not helped by the hostile economic climate of the interwar period. It explores, region by region, how their progress was checked by war and depression, and how the effects of political and social factors could also be a major impediment to sustained progress and modernisation. For example, in many cases political corruption and instability, deficient administrations, ethnic and religious diversity, agrarian structures and backwardness, population pressures, as well as international friction, were retarding factors. In all this study offers a fascinating insight into many areas of Europe that are often ignored by economists and historians. It demonstrates that these countries were by no means a lost cause, and that their post-war performances show the latent economic potential that most harboured. By providing an insight into the development of Europe's 'periphery' a much more rounded and complete picture of the continent as a whole is achieved. |
Contents
Peripheral Europe in the Interwar Setting | |
The Balkan States | |
The Baltic States | |
Spain and Portugal | |
Greece Turkey and Albania | |
Development Stalled? | |
Bibliography | |
Other editions - View all
Europe's Third World: the European Periphery in the Interwar Years Derek Howard Aldcroft Limited preview - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
50 per cent accounted agrarian sector agricultural products Albania Aldcroft backward Balkan countries Balkan Wars Baltic Bank became Berend Britain budgetary Bulgaria cereals commodity prices country’s Crampton currency debt servicing decade declined defence depression domestic East European Eastern Europe economic development Economic History enterprises especially Estonia Europe’s European countries exchange control fact farming forces foreign capital Germany gold Greece Greek growth half hectares History of Eastern Hungary Hungary’s important increased industrial development industrial production industrialisation inefficient inflation infrastructure interwar period labour Lampe land reform Latvia League of Nations Lithuania London manufacturing million modern modernisation nineteenth century Ottoman Empire output Oxford peasants pengös peripheral countries peripheral Europe Poland political population Portugal postwar prewar level problem Ranki raw materials reconstruction regime remained Romania Russian Serbia social Spain stabilisation structure Table territory trade Treaty Treaty of Lausanne Turkey Twentieth Century University Press Western World Yugoslavia