The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s (Paperback)

Most histories tend to focus either upon international relations, or are country specific. By drawing the two together we are able to instantly see how one affected the other. The book does not just focus upon the machinations of the political elite: Brendon consistently attempts to take into account public opinion, and the effects of the Depression upon ordinary people is well detailed.

The approach he has adopted does really pay off. The chapters are linked together well, and the placing of the Spanish chapters together clearly reflects Brendon’s belief that it was the major international event and, perhaps, the one occasion when history could have taken a radically different stance. The appeasement towards Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, Italy’s campaign in Abbyssinia and Hitler’s march across Eastern Europe is well documented: the Spanish chapters therefore provide extra illumination upon international affairs in the 1930s.

The book is thoroughly researched, and there are many humorous anecdotes that often express the futility of the times. Like the work of Robert Service, the anecdotes do not cheapen the narrative, instead enhancing the book. One of the best features of the book are the character sketches, deployed to describe the main actors of the decade. Often witty, Brendon draws the characters evocatively, and adds significantly to the enjoyment of the book.

The one criticism of the book is that by attempting to hit so many targets the narrative can often become lost. Because the chapters on the countries are spread out, to create a chronological narrative, it is often difficult to remember who was whom when you next hit that country. This was perhaps most apparent in France and Japan where the governments frequently changed, and it was difficult to remember who was in power.

However, the book is a fantastic survey of the decade. Brendon has drawn together stories that would normally be separate, and knitted them together extremely well. The writing is energetic, and his analysis is scrupulously fair, though he is extremely damning to most of the political class in democracies. This book is a must-read for any student of 20th Century history.

“The Dark Valley” is, despite its wide subject-area, covering Britain, Japan, America, Italy, Germany, France and Spain (during the Civil War at least), is incredibly in-depth. This is the work of a man who has spent literally years working on his magnum opus, as you can tell from there being never less than 100 quotations in each chapter, which Brendon blends adroitly into the main body of his text, giving everything a very authentic feel. With the immense research Brendon has obviously done, it’s far easier to place trust in his conclusions than perhaps one might other historians’.

Brendon deals with the numerous major events which led from the First World War to the Second, which inevitably centres around the Great Depression to a large degree. However, he manages to bring everything down to a very human level, mostly steering well clear of (for me) boring sets of figures and dates showing different countries’ economies during the years following 1929. As he states in his introduction, he deals with “vignettes” of key protagonists of the time; politicians, big business men, radical thinkers, military men etc, from France’s Popular Front under Leon Blum, to the out of control Japanese army in Manchuria/Manchukuo. Brendon conveys a real sense of who these people were, who shaped the landscape of the world as it is today, using anecdotes and extracts from diaries, speeches and newspaper reports, though obviously the latter two were more often than not propaganda. This is a theme well developed by Brendon, as he demonstrates just how much information (and thus whole nations) was controlled during this period; the Dark Valley of the title is increasingly significant in this sense, because most people had no idea what was happening around them, literally living “in the dark”.

This more personal touch of Brendon’s, telling the stories of individuals to show the reader what famous (and infamous) events and places were really like to live through, makes “The Dark Valley” quite similar to Antony Beevor’s acclaimed masterpiece, “Stalingrad”, which reviewers have already noted. I would suggests, though, that with its immense depth and much larger canvas, “The Dark Valley” is the superior of these books, if only from the selfish view of how much I was made interested in or even entertained by the events described within the respective books. Even if you would disagree with me on this, I think anyone reading Brendon’s work would have to agree that it could hardly have been done better: this really is history at its best.

The only minor problems I had with this book at all were the sheer length of it – ignore the page count, the font is so small and the pages so large, this could easily be as lengthy as “A People’s Tragedy” – although never uninteresting, it does make tackling this book a daunting task. The other small quibbles are the American Chapters – perhaps a matter of personal preference, but American history in the 1930s is actually pretty dull compared with what was happening in the rest of the world. These chapters, apart from the initial ones explaining the Wall Street Crash and Roosevelt’s New Deal, tend to follow the lines of “the President did this, people did not like this. Therefore the President did this – the people quite liked this”.

But as I say, this in no way prevents “The Dark Valley” being a true classic of historical study.