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Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 |
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Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
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by Tony Judt
Sales Rank: 17798
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List Price: $20.00
$13.60
At Amazon
on 6-22-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 960 pages
Published by: Penguin Non-Classics September 5, 2006
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0143037757
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0143037750
Book Dimensions:
8.8 x 6 x 1.8 inches
Weighs: 1.8 pounds
Product Review
World War II may have ended in 1945, but according to historian Tony Judt, the conflict's epilogue lasted for nearly the rest of the century. Calling 1945-1989 "an interim age," Judt looks at what happened on each side of the Iron Curtain, with the West nervously inching forward while the East endured the "peace of the prison yard" until the fall of Communism in 1989 signaled their chance to progress. Though he proposes no grand, overarching theory of the postwar period, Judt's massive work covers the broad strokes as well as the fine details of the years 1945 to 2005. No one book (even at nearly a thousand pages) could fully encompass this complex period, but Postwar comes close, and is impressive for its scope, synthesis, clarity, and narrative cohesion.
Judt treats the entire continent as a whole, providing equal coverage of social changes, economic forces, and cultural shifts in western and eastern Europe. He offers a county-by-county analysis of how each Eastern nation shed Communism and traces the rise of the European Union, looking at what it represents both economically and ideologically. Along with the dealings between European nations, he also covers Europe's conflicted relationship with the United States, which learned much different lessons from World War II than did Europe. In particular, he studies the success of the Marshall Plan and the way the West both appreciated and resented the help, for acceptance of it reminded them of their diminished place in the world. No impartial observer, Judt offers his judgments and opinions throughout the book in an attempt to instruct as well as inform. If a moral lesson is to come from World War II, Judt writes, "then it will have to be taught afresh with each passing generation. 'European Union' may be an answer to history, but it can never be a substitute." This book would be an great place to start that lesson. --Shawn Carkonen
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This is the best history we have of Europe in the postwar period and not likely to be surpassed for many years. Judt, director of New York University's Remarque Institute, is an academic historian of repute and, more recently, a keen observer of European affairs whose powerfully written articles have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books and elsewhere. Here he combines deep knowledge with a sharply honed style and an eye for the expressive detail. Postwar is a hefty volume, and there are places where the details might overwhelm some readers. But the reward is always there: after pages on cabinet shuffles in some small country, or endless diplomatic negotiations concerning the fate of Germany or moves toward the European Union, the reader is snapped back to attention by insightful analysis and great writing. Judt shows that the dire human and economic costs of WWII shadowed Europe for a very long time afterward. Europeans and Americans recall the economic miracle, but it didn't really transform people's lives until the late 1950s, when a new, more individualized, consumer-oriented society began to appear in the West. But Postwar is not just a history of Western Europe. One of its great virtues is that it fully integrates the history of Eastern and Western Europe, and covers the small countries as well as the large and powerful ones. Judt is judicious, even a bit uncritical, in his appraisal of American involvement in Europe in the early postwar years, and he's scathing about Western intellectuals' accommodation to communism. His book focuses on cultural and intellectual life rather than the social experiences of factory workers or peasants, but it would probably be impossible to encompass all of it in one volume. Overall, this is history writing at its very best.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (Hardcover)
The three main themes of this account of postwar Europe is the death of ideology, the role individuals in shaping history, and the birth of the European Union and a new way of life that rejects the extremes of Soviet Communism and American Capitalism. Tony Judt makes the case that the era of political ideologies was ending in the last half of the twentieth century. In Western Europe the birth of the welfare state and the combining of the left and right on various issues resulted in the end of the political extremism. While in Eastern Europe, Communism was unable to reform itself as seen in the failed uprisings in Hungary and Czechosolvakia ending in its final collaspse in the period from 1989 to 1991. Moreover the repression of the Communist regimes combined with their economic mismanagement soiled the reputation of Communism in both Eastern and Western Europe. Despite these faults, Judt mantains that it was Gorbachev and his reforms which resulted in the fall of Communism. Judt's view of Gorbachev supports his thesis about the role of individuals in shaping history. Judt writes that Stalin in implementing harsh Communist governments throughout Eastern Europe discouraged Western European nations from pursuing a neutral course during the start of the Cold War. While Juan Carlos in Spain was able to transform Spain from being an authoritrain country into a democracy. Finally Milosevic and not any organized nationalist ideology helped to enflame the Serbs into committing war crimes in Bosnia during the nineties. The third theme of this book is the growth of the European Union that started as customs union for agricultural goods and then unifed its monetary policy in the seventies which resulted in a common currency in 1999. Tony concludes his book by stating that the European Union now promotes a new way of life that secures a free first class education and healthcare for its citizens and has strong safety net for the unemployed and elderly. The only weakness of this book is that Judt ignores other areas of European partnership such as Airbus and the European Space Agency, and he doesn't spend enough time in writing about the Muslim populations in Western Europe and their problems with assimilating into a secular society.
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