Postwar A History of Europe Since 1945

by Judt, Tony

• ISBN13: 9781594200656
• ISBN10: 1594200653
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-10-06
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The

Summary

Tony Judt's Postwar makes one lament the overuse of the word "groundbreaking." It is an unprecedented accomplishment: the first truly European history of contemporary Europe, from Lisbon to Leningrad, based on research in six languages, covering thirty-four countries across sixty years in a single integrated narrative, using a great deal of material from newly available sources. Tony Judt has drawn on forty years of reading and writing about modern Europe to create a fully rounded, deep account of the continent's recent past. The book integrates international relations, domestic politics, ideas, social change, economic development, and culture--high and low--into a single grand narrative. Every country has its chance to play the lead, and although the big themes are superbly handled--including the cold war, the love/hate relationship with America, cultural and economic malaise and rebirth, and the myth and reality of unification--none of them is allowed to overshadow the rich pageant that is the whole. Vividly and clearly written for the general reader; witty, opinionated, and full of fresh and surprising stories and asides; visually rich and rewarding, with useful and provocative maps, photos, and cartoons throughout, Postwaris a movable feast for lovers of history and lovers of Europe alike. A magnificent history of postwar Europe, East and West, by arguably the subject's most esteemed historian.

Author Biography

Tony Judt was born in London in 1948. He was educated at King's College, Cambridge, and the +ëcole Normale Sup+¬rieure, Paris, and has taught at Cambridge, Oxford, Berkeley, and New York University, where he is currently the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies and Director of the Remarque Institute, which is dedicated to the study of Europe and that he founded in 1995. The author or editor of eleven books, he is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, The New York Times, and many other journals in Europe and the United States.

Table of Contents

Preface & Acknowledgements	xiii
Introduction	1	(12)
PART ONE: Post-War: 1945-1953
I The Legacy of War	13	(28)
II Retribution	41	(22)
III The Rehabilitation of Europe	63	(37)
IV The Impossible Settlement	100	(29)
V The Coming of the Cold War	129	(36)
VI Into the Whirlwind	165	(32)
VII Culture Wars	197	(29)
CODA The End of Old Europe	226	(15)
PART TWO: Prosperity and Its Discontents: 1953-1971
VIII The Politics of Stability	241	(37)
IX Lost Illusions	278	(46)
X The Age of Affluence	324	(36)
XI The Social Democratic Hour	360	(30)
XII The Spectre of Revolution	390	(32)
XIII The End of the Affair	422	(31)
PART THREE: Recessional: 1971-1989
XIV Diminished Expectations	453	(31)
XV Politics in a New Key	484	(20)
XVI A Time of Transition	504	(31)
XVII The New Realism	535	(24)
XVIII The Power of the Powerless	559	(26)
XIX The End of the Old Order	585	(52)
PART FOUR: After the Fall: 1989-2005
XX A Fissile Continent	637	(28)
XXI The Reckoning	665	(36)
XXII The Old Europe—and the New	701	(48)
XXIII The Varieties of Europe	749	(28)
XXIV Europe as a Way of Life	777	(26)
EPILOGUE From the House of the Dead: An Essay on Modern European Memory	803	(32)
Index	835
0802086861
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	3	(10)
Chapter 1: Modernity and the Problem of the Social	13	(18)
Chapter 2: Durkheim's Manifesto	31	(24)
Chapter 3: Mills's Promise	55	(34)
Chapter 4: Baudrillard's Silence	89	(28)
Conclusion	117	(8)
Notes	125	(6)
References	131	(8)
Index	139