Europe in the twentieth century proved that it was not the natural homeland of freedom and democracy, but rather a nightmarish laboratory of social and political experimentation. There, it repeatedly dismantled and reshaped itself through war, revolution, economic and ideological competition. Fascism and communism emerged as alternative solutions to democracy and attracted intellectuals and masses thanks to the dynamic ways they addressed the challenges of the modern world. By 1940, most Europeans were disillusioned with democratic governance, and the future of Europe was in Hitler's hands. Only the defeat of the Nazi New Order gave democracy a second chance, and only the supremacy of capitalism over communism ensured its triumph in 1989. Traversing the continent from end to end, from Western Europe to Russia and the Balkans (with unusually dense references to Greece), Mazower shows its involvement in a precarious struggle between tolerance and racial extermination, imperial ambitions and national self-determination, the charged past and the uncertain future of a European Union in constant evolution.