A history of the largely forgotten peasant revolution that swept central and eastern Europe after World War I-and how it changed the course of interwar politics and World War IIAs the First World War ended, villages across central and eastern Europe rose in revolt. Led in many places by a shadowy movement of army deserters, peasants attacked those whom they blamed for wartime abuses and long years of exploitation-large estate owners, officials, and merchants, who were often Jewish. At the same time, peasants tried to realize their rural visions of a reborn society, establishing local self-government or attempting to influence the new states that were being built atop the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. In The Last Peasant War, Jakub Bene- presents the first comprehensive history of this dramatic and largely forgotten revolution and traces its impact on interwar politics and the course of the Second World War. Sweeping large portions of the countryside between the
