Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

"Postwar - A history of Europe since 1945" by Tony Judt is the best book I have read on the subject. Its perspective on events since 1989 up to 2005 is remarkably good. Only two generations have passed since World War 2, and the risk with a book about this period is that its conclusions and themes may prove to be foolish in the fullness of time. One is reminded of Mao's response to a question about the consequences of the French Revolution, "It is too soon to tell." We can probably be reasonably sure that the history of Europe from the collapse of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires plus the Soviet upheavals after WW1 to the final territorial and ethnic spasm in the Balkans in the 1990s can probably be written with some certainty, although we still lack access to original source documents for the Soviet role over that period. All books dealing with post-war European history suffer from the fact that limited archival material from the Soviet Union has been available for study. Historians are forced to rely on sporadic Soviet documents and speeches and the assessments of western diplomats and analysts to interpret Soviet thinking and intentions. The result is that this book (and others) views the history of the Communist world with Western eyes and Western mindsets. We are denied access to the thoughts, fears and hopes of communist politicians and dissidents and their influence on history. Hopefully, one day, more archival and other documents will become available to historians and a more balanced history will emerge over time. If I may give another analogy: at present historians writing of the Communist world are peering through the windows of a house trying to understand the lives of the family living there. They see people going to and fro in the rooms. Occasionally they get glimpses of what the individuals are reading and writing. Sometimes a resident will hold up a photo or document for the historian to see. But the historian cannot hear what they say, nor can he go inside the house to talk to them or inspect their documents, or ask them their views on the outside world. He can draw conclusions only from what he sees through the windows. A big message from this book is that the recovery and prosperity enjoyed by Western Europe for half a century is due to both the US and the USSR. The US provided critical economic aid and political support to Europe, including West Germany, because of the threat assumed to be posed by the USSR. Without such a threat, the US may have retreated into isolationism, leaving the Europeans to sort out the mess. Without the threat of the USSR, there may not have been the will forgo reparations from Germany and to encourage West Germany to recover. These were distinct possibilities in the immediate post-war period. The book deals only with the history of Western Europe, with very little explanation of the impact of the rest of the world on that history. Events and policies in the USSR and USA are cov

The two adjectives that come to mind after reading this work are magisterial and comprehensive. Although I am no expert on the subject, this is probably the most definitive history of postwar Europe to date. Historian Tony Judt (one of my favorite reviewers for the "New York Review of Books") was born in London, educated in Paris, and is currently director of the Remarque Institute in New York, an institution dedicated to the better understanding of Europe in America. In this work, Judt takes us through 60 years of European history, from the wasteland of 1945 to the peaceful and affluent Europe of 2005. After the self-destructive mayhem of the early 20th century, Judt shows how lessons were learned and institutions designed so that the horrors would never be repeated. He speculates that the European model may yet be the model for other nations or groups of nations to emulate in the 21st century. As Judt rightly points out in his essay on European memory, Europe was able to rebuild economically and politically by forgetting about the immediate past. There was much to forget. It was shameful how many people collaborated with the Nazis and how few resisted. He claims that it took only 1,500 Nazi officials and 6,000 German policemen to control France, a nation of 40 million. The Netherlands was not much better. After the war, it would have been even more destructive to seek retribution, even though there was some settling of scores. The Allies, as well as the Soviets on their side, used former members of the Nazi party to administer the occupied countries, since most of the talented people were part of the Nazi regime. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the period from 1945 to 1949, there was a sense of hopelessness, and it even looked like Europe was doomed as a civilization. Ironically, it was the beginning of the Cold War that saved Europe. Western European countries were forced to cooperate with each other on a scale not seen before. France and Britain originally wanted reparations from Germany, not only because they felt entitled, but they wanted to keep Germany weak. However, in the face of the gathering Soviet threat, they decided to make West Germany a integral part of Western Europe. In addition, US funding of the Marshall plan and the creation of Nato allowed Western Europeans to work furiously to rebuild their economies. During this period, they had an economic growth rate that within 10 years made them wealthier than they were before the war. Nato was designed to be a defensive organization. After the uprisings in Germany in 1953 and Hungary in 1956, it became clear to the Europeans that the US was not going to intervene in Eastern Europe. This actually created further stability in the West. Judt is very good at showing how the Common Market got started and how it became the European Union of today. It was a response to the utter destruction of World War II, and it was also a response to the threat of the Sovie

This is an excellent survey book for the general reader that pulls together the disparate developments in European history since the end of WWII. The result is a cohesive overview I have not found elsewhere, especially consideration of the turmoil in the Eastern bloc and the practical political problems. I disagree with several criticisms levelled at the book in the following particulars. First, it is claimed that the book offers nothing new. That is true in the sense that what is reported it not new; however such an excellent overview is new. Second, there are complaints about the lack of footnotes. On this I again say the book is an overview and not directed at specialists. Inclusion of anything approaching an academically adequate footnoting would have expanded the work to two or more volumes. Third, it is claimed there are errors. Well, sure there are. Judt is writing about developments in 40+ nations which ranged from advanced to backward. However, given the volume of factual matter, there appear to be few errors. Fourth, it is claimed that the book is too long. I disagree and believe that Judt did an excellent of job of editing down to get the book to the size it is. A reader who is not interested in some parts can skip them. This is not a work for specialists who will likely criticize it as a popularization as they proceed to write their dry tomes no one but other specialists will ever read. I grew up in the forties and fifties and spent most of 1961 to 1965 in West Germany in the military and as a foreigh exchange student. It was a delight to read Judt's research about those years and those that followed. Great Book!

Tony Judt, with POSTWAR, lays out in the massively complex story of the European continent in the wake of WWII. But be prepared -- dense with facts (over-dense in some cases, perhaps) this is a history that demands much of the reader, both in terms of concentration, as well as time. Judt, I believe, uses his facts in an exemplary way - to really communicate, for instance, the near total destruction of Europe and the implications that held for rebuilding a shattered continent. For example, Judt is particularly good at elucidating through facts the pernicious and massive evil of the Nazi death state, which he makes apparent was essentially a machine manned on one end by the military and on the other end, by slave labor manufacturing munitions. This machine not only killed millions of Allied soldiers, and millions more to attain "racial purity," it dragged hundreds of thousands into the heart of the Nazi military industrial complex from all over Europe to manufacture weapons and do the work of the "master race." It is in the details that Judt communicates how diabolical this machine truly was, its scale, its reach, its viciousness and cruelty. Upon this solid foundation that Judt then builds his impressive history of Europe's recovery. This is an even more complex story than that of the immediate postwar era, but Judt handles it with balance and distinction. For those of us raised in the postwar world and who only experienced its history from movies, television, or less comprehensive histories, Judt's work is not only impressive its scope, but truly insightful and useful as well.

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.