It has often been said the years between the end of World War I in 1918 and the beginning of World War II in 1939 were only a temporary cessation of one conflict and its re-ignition and continuation in the other.

German-born historian Philipp Blom underlines this view in Fracture, by recalling what Paul Deschanel, involved in Treaty of  Versailles negotiations and later France's president, said of the treaty: "We have just signed on to the Second World War". The treaty, Blom writes, had "locked Germany into a state of permanent crisis". This crisis would have the country experience political and social upheaval, the emergence of the Weimar Republic, the Great Depression (along with the rest of the world) and the rise and establishment of Hitler and the Nazis.

Yet Blom's book, as its subtitle flags – Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938 – is far broader in scope than the German political-social situation. He structures his narrative into two parts, post-war, from 1918 to 1928, and pre-war, 1929 to 1938, with a chapter on events in each year.

Blom describes his history as being at heart one of "attitudes and strategies deployed throughout the interwar years". But, these are not of politicians and armies, rather issues such as people's and societies' perceptions, fears and wishes, and dealing with modern industrialisation. All this and more, especially once old values were gone.

He explores the interwar period away from its familiar and great historical milestones. So, for example, the chapter on 1919 is not devoted to the Versailles peace negotiations; the focus in 1923 is not on German hyper-inflation; 1929 is not the Great Crash; and 1933 not Hitler's ascent to power.

Instead, Blom has chosen what he terms "less obvious and more varied themes that form a mosaic of perspectives and identities growing and evolving over time". These develop from the initial shock of the post-war period, through to increasing tension post 1929, which evolved into a pre-war time.

Chapters include the plight of Great War veterans, the rise of fascism, speakeasies in Prohibition USA, development of African-American culture in Harlem, the discovery of galaxies beyond the Milky Way, surrealists in Paris, evolution "on trial" in Tennessee, the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and many other subjects.

The chapter about 1919, A Poet's Coup, is in part about Italian poet and war hero Gabriele d'Annunzio, famous for his fine words and countless affairs, but who also invented the "aesthetics of fascism", while in Men Behaving Badly, about 1924, we learn about Dadaism, and Andre Breton's presence on the Paris cultural scene and the publication of his Surrealist Manifesto, "a truly remarkable document".

Boop-Boop-a-Doop!, set in 1928 at the end of the post-war half, reintroduces us (or introduces – depending on your age) to the famous American Betty Boop phenomenon in an age when US youngsters wanted to enjoy life, their ideology the dance called the Charleston.

Not much enjoyment of life in 1932: Holodomor, a Ukrainian word coined to describe the famine of 1932-33, in which millions of people died, estimates ranging from about 2.5 million to some five million. Nor not much in 1934, Thank You, Jeeves, which contrasts P.G.Wodehouse's rather jolly – and popular – Bertie Wooster tales to the reality for many Britons of grim lives in the midst of the Depression.

Finally, 1938: Abide by Me, an epilogue in which the author summarises the between-wars years, declaring the "peace was fragile at best", the next war waiting in the wings – a "second catastrophe". Blom's many layered and liberally illustrated work is quite the "mosaic" described, one worthy of considerable and wide attention.