And didn t end until the global embers of the Cold War were fully extinguished with the Soviet Empire s final implosion in 1991 The eighty some year conflict a search for workable political and economic systems to go along with military and colonial conquest ended with the United States globally regnant from its ocean moated stronghold Russia dazed and reeling after its recent tumultuous imperial dissolution and the former Great Powers of Europe having been thoroughly chastised and humbled by the ruinous outcome of their own folly and hubris shadows of their former dominant strength and influence The ofttimes troubled and resentful attitude of Europeans towards their American protector and benefactor whose tendrils were uncomfortably taking root everywhere was deeply intermingled with a profound gratitude and appreciation for America s unyielding and unending support over the decades Needing America yet resisting America this would become Europe s seemingly permanent modus operandi This love hate relationship would subsequently emerge in the Eastern nations that rejected communism and undertook crash courses in market economies in the nineties the painful lessons quickly learned from Shock Therapy and the resulting liquidation of savings and support networks meant that before the dawn of the new century.

Tony Judt decided to write Postwar in 1989 the year the collapse of the Soviet Union provided European history with a rare example of a clearly signposted end of an era It s scarcely surprising then that the great virtue of Judt s book is the clarity and the breadth of its account of postwar Europe His book coalesces around one central the idea that the whole of the history of this period can be explained as an unravelling of the consequences of World War II A bold claim but Judt s exceptional ability to create strong well structured inclusive arguments allows him to pull it off convincingly Judt s work is also a fine example of creative thinking in that he excels in connecting things together in new and interesting ways This virtue extends from his unusual ability to combine the best elements of the Anglo American and the French historiographical traditions the latter informing his strong interest in the importance of cultural history to his unwillingness to allow himself to be constrained by historical category and ultimately to his linguistic abilities Postwar is above all a triumph of integration something that is only made possible by its author s flair for creating strong persuasive arguments An Analysis of Tony Judt s Postwar A History of Europe since 1945 The Macat Library Librarian Note There is than one author in the GoodReads database with this name site_link See this thread for information. Simon Young was awarded a starred First in Anglo Saxon Norse and Celtic from Cambridge University as well as the Chadwick Prize for Celtic studies Since then he has lived in Spain Ireland and Italy The author of many academic articles he has also written about the Dark Ages for History Today the Spectator and the Guardian Librarian Note There is than one author in the GoodReads database with this name site_link See this thread for information. Simon Young was awarded a starred First in Anglo Saxon Norse and Celtic from Cambridge University as well as the Chadwick Prize for Celtic studies Since then he has lived in Spain Ireland and Italy The author of many academic articles he has also written about the Dark Ages for History Today the Spectator and the Guardian site_link Postwar A History of Europe Since 1945 is a 2005 non fiction book written by British historian and scholar Tony Judt who specialised in European history The book examines six decades of European history from the end of World War II in 1945 up to 2005. This is history writ large done to perfection Judt has compressed a lifetime of study and exploration of European cultural memes into this masterwork one which abounds with erudition penetrating analysis and wise reflection Judt states in his introduction that he hoped to produce a work that might compare favorably with that of the historians he had read and enjoyed such as Eric Hosbsbawn Speaking as one who has read the latter s brilliant tetralogy that runs from the French Revolution to the end of the twentieth century I can announce that the author succeeded in every single way Fifty years of European history producing such an amazing amount of transformative change and renewal presents a daunting task for the historian that Judt manages to pull it off with prose that is compulsively readable and effortlessly scintillating that combines broad overview with pinpoint observation is endlessly impressive This truly is as good as it gets. The period under examination encompasses the broken ruined remnants of a shattered Europe that grimly faced an exhausted world in 1945 through to the 2005 admission of several former communist states Poland Hungary Slovenia and the Czech Slovak and Baltic Republics into the European Union the continent s overdue response to the cycle of war and destruction enacted with sanguine regularity throughout the first half of the twentieth century These five decades witnessed the astonishing economic and political recovery of the western half set against the repression and stagnation endured by those eastern realms with the misfortune to have been liberated by the mighty Red Army and wrapped in the strangling bonds of Real Existing Socialism This bifurcation was enacted as the Cold War under the auspices of the twin superpower patrons the United States and the Soviet Union a continental standoff that sparked a handful of terrifying flash points before settling into a endurable d tente until the eastern communist edifice shrugged its shoulders in 1989 and the entire house of cards tumbled down. From his vantage point circa 2005 Judt posits that the World War was a single event which began in 1914 with the onset of mass mobilization and mechanized slaughter a sizable portion of the Eastern populace looked with a nostalgic longing upon the staid boring security that Real Existing Socialism provided for its closed off citizenry Not everybody finds it easy or preferable dealing with freedom with the rapid daily change that is inherent to democratic capitalism with unfettered markets As Judt points out Europe needs both to remember and forget its history in the past century if future generations are to expand upon the continent s remarkable resurrection and transformation and put paid to the ghosts that haunt a collective memory s retreats. It really is difficult to convey in the space of a review the extraordinary range of Judt s knowledge of this tumultuous and historic epoch of our recent past His assessments are liberally spiced with wry commentary and thoughtful opinion and there really is no corner of the European landscape that escapes his sure footed stride The impossible task that faced the triumphant allies as they surveyed the endless wreckage of a continent brought low is laid out clearly and while he stresses the admixture of American generosity and commitment with European forbearance and resolve that wrought such transformative changes upon the West he also illuminates the willful amnesia that was both tacitly encouraged and required by the postwar governments in order to bring off this stunning turnaround a collective disremembering that would surface in future years seeking payback with interest On the Soviet side of the liberation the introduction of Stalinist terror and repression with the brutal show trials and torture induced confessions that inevitably accompanied them quickly snuffed whatever enthusiasm for communism existed in the repressed nations and opened the West s eyes to exactly what they were dealing with In this as in so many things Stalin proved his own worst enemy his murderous implementation of Soviet style communism increasingly diminished the political power of communist parties in the Western half of Europe ceding the left wing ground to the various Social Democratic parties that were resolved to work within the confines of elective political systems and capitalist economies As acute as Judt is in relating the story of the West he truly excels in his dissection of the miseries and impositions enacted upon the East especially the travails of long suffering Poland and perpetually betrayed Czechoslovakia As the dynamic recovery in West Germany Italy France and the United Kingdom churns along even as the latter two shed their remaining Imperial territories peacefully and bloodily the festering wards of the Red Army endure the crushed hopes of the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring The brutal subjugation of these doomed but inspired attempts to pull free of the Soviet Union s grasp shattered what remained of the unity of the European Left along with whatever traces existed in the Communist buffer states of a belief in Socialism s Historical Necessity. Judt s take upon the sixties and the seventies and their impact both perceived then and realized later upon the courses of European history is masterful The origins of the European Union in a sidebar French project to unite France West Germany and the Benelux countries in a tariff union against the overweening domination of the Anglo American alliance the re birth of democracy from the authoritarian ashes of Portugal Greece and Spain the Post Keynesian enthusiasm for Hayekian market reforms privatization and tax cuts that launched the eighties into a remarkably affluent and destructive financial boom the Soviet Union s long road to dissolution and ephemerality that proceeded from the unlikely turning point of the Helsinki Accords through the Afghanistan invasion the formation of Poland s Solidarity movement and the unrelenting bravery and passion that exploded over Gorbachev s introduction of glasnost and perestroika reforms that lead to the unforeseen and swift shedding of communist shackles by the Warsaw Pact realms in the miracle year of 1989 Judt produces the entire story beautifully written and packed full of immensely courageous individuals Adam Michnik being a favorite of mine in history that probes and sheds light in prodigious abundance. Yet perhaps the best is saved for last the seesaw struggles that played out in the East newfound shaky freedom greeting these blinking patients awoken from stasis and the wary enthusiasm these desperate struggles were greeted with by a West startled out of a complacent and accepted duality The author s disappointment is palpable at the manner in which these fledgling Eastern democracies were treated by their Western cousins who abandoned the American wisdom in the aftermath of the Second World War in favor of the misguided approach of the First there was no Marshall Plan to be extended in 1990 rather a slew of consultants and corporations offered their advice and money and made a fortune purchasing national assets in Russia foremost for a fraction of their market value This avaricious plunder of the East s resources would be a source of simmering anger and foster a sense of betrayal in the years to come The story arc of the European Union its bureaucratic complexities its financial strictures and structures the long waltz that wended its way across the dance floor of the nineties before the post Communist nations impatient to embrace their new continental destiny received their invitations to the European community is described better than any account I ve read The overarching need for a purpose for the new communal powerhouse makes itself clear in the shameful response of the European powers to the tragedy that was enacted by murderous bands of paramilitary thugs in the broken shards of Yugoslavia filled with bloodlust by cynical and power hungry demagogues and enjoined to genocide while the UN peacekeepers idly stood by Without the firm directing hand of the US who knows how much blood would have soaked the already well watered soils of the Balkans Judt closes with a pair of chapters that examine the modern European identity contrasts it favorably with that of the dominant economic titans America and China and posits that if the EU and its plurality of ethnicities religions and nationalisms can manage to seriously get its shit together there is really no reason that the twenty first century couldn t belong to a Europe that has learned so many painful lessons and crafted so many prudent and preventative responses The epilogue a thirty page essay examining the lingering memories of the Holocaust that have hung over the postwar continent for decades a relentless burden of guilt that had been studiously ignored prevaricated over avoided and then finally accepted and acknowledged in various perhaps necessary stages as the savage slaughter of World War Two began to fade in the rearview mirror brings this masterpiece to a close with a sober but optimistic caution Evil was unleashed in the war and of necessity this evil had to be confronted by those who had participated in or enabled it but if this guilt can be cleansed without leaving the stains of self pity or angry ressentiment there is a real possibility that the future existence of Europe may be finally enduringly one of peace. Judt is admirably wary of generalisations and thus explains the differences in experiences of communism across different Eastern European countries something I previously knew practically nothing about Britain comes off as marginal and largely unimportant which of course it is If only our political culture could begin to accept that There were some resonances with a book I dismissed as ridiculous while reading it years ago Going South Why Britain will have a Third World Economy by 2014 That argued Britain has been in economic decline since the 1870s which despite the title s hyperbole does have some plausibility. Postwar begins of course with the state of Europe immediately after the end of the Second World War The portrait of a continent in ruins is vivid and horrifying Some surprising paradoxes emerge a vast amount of housing was destroyed requiring decades of rebuilding Yet Germany lost hardly any industrial machinery facilitating an impressively swift economic recovery Of the European countries and Russia only Britain and Germany suffered military than civilian casualties I m sure that the British English nostalgia for the Blitz Spirit is influenced by this fact which is also linked our not being invaded One thing that stuck with me amongst the litany of disaster was the sheer number of refugees moving between European countries after the end of the war numbering in the millions And the fact that Germany s currency was cigarettes allowing American GIs to profit from arbitrage Of course it was also American money that helped Europe come back from complete collapse. The broad structure of Postwar is intriguing in itself The four parts cover 1945 1953 1953 1971 1971 1989 and 1989 2005 I was surprised to find Judt much interested in the 1970s than the 1960s In general he treats the 60s as a time of comfortable prosperity and cultural change in Europe while not considering the 1968 upheavals as particularly transformative He does not dispute that they had impacts but devotes much attention to the growing political and social cynicism of the 70s I got the impression of Europe being complacent in the 60s then losing its confidence in the 70s both in the East and West The subsequent account of how the USSR collapsed from within in 1989 is really moving As in the rest of the book Judt s writing is clear specific and humane. Two areas of history that I was particularly glad to learn about were the Irish Troubles which I shamefully have never read a whole book about and the wars in Yugoslavia Both had a vague and distant familiarity from the TV news during my childhood yet I was too young and unaffected by them to understand what was actually happening Judt provides elegant and thorough summaries a reminder that postwar Europe has not been entirely peaceful He also compares the sectarian violence in Ireland with that of ETA and German paramilitary organisations during the same period something I hadn t come across before The complexity of Yugoslavia s descent into multiple wars is difficult to explain given the web of historical linguistic and religious dynamics involved I feel better informed albeit probably not able to describe the conflicts to someone else. While reading Postwar my mind often strayed to the issue currently consuming UK politics in a collective nervous breakdown Brexit The genesis and somewhat erratic evolution of the EU is woven throughout the book with the relationship between France and Germany presented as the greatest influence It s very ironic to read that Britain s original interest in joining the European Community was purely economic as it began as a customs union Now the UK has a hopelessly fanatical government that refuses to contemplate Northern Ireland remaining in the European customs union let alone Great Britain Indeed the government has just spent millions on an advertising campaign stating authoritatively that the UK will leave the EU in just over two weeks On what terms Who the fuck knows As Postwar ends in 2005 it does not cover the financial crisis or its legacy of austerity across Europe Searching for evidence of how it all came to this however still turned up highly relevant insights On the EU as an institution The levers of the Union s economic machinery depend for their efficiency upon the consent of all constituent parts Where everyone or less concurs on the principle and benefits of a given policy on open internal borders or unrestricted markets for goods and services the EU has made remarkable progress Where there is real dissent from a handful of members or even just one particularly if it is a major contributor policy stalls tax harmonisation like the reduction in agricultural supports has been on the agenda for decades. This is striking to read in 2019 During the aftermath of the financial crisis the European Central Bank definitely no longer relied entirely upon consent when it came to heavily indebted member states I recall both Greece and Italy having their governments essentially replaced at the ECB s behest Both countries are closely linked to the EU and thus limited in their economic policy options by the euro Still the UK is the only country to apparently think that leaving the EU would solve problems than the myriad it would cause I find it notable how rarely the idea is raised in British politics that we need to be in the EU whether we like it or not On the continent as Judt writes this is taken for granted Flawed as it is the EU cannot be ignored and interacting with it somehow forms the only viable economic option on offer in the vicinity. This passage also reads very differently now than it would have in 2005 It s rather bittersweet If a clearly articulated European project describing the goals and institutions of the Union as they later evolved had ever been put to the separate voters of the states of Western Europe it would surely have been rejected. The advantage of the European project in the decades following World War Two had thus lain precisely in its imprecision Like growth or peace with both of which it was closely associated in the minds of its proponents Europe was too benign to attract effective opposition For all its faults as a system of indirect government the Union has certain interesting and original attributes Decisions and laws may be passed at a transgovernmental level but they are implemented by and through national authorities Everything has to be undertaken by agreement since there are no instruments of coercion no EU tax collectors no EU policemen The European Union thus represents an unusual compromise international governance undertaken by national governments. When the ECB subsequently wielded debt relief as an instrument of coercion I think it demonstrated the continuing strength of Germany as the heart of the EU National government remained instrumental albeit in penalising other such governments An Analysis of Tony Judt s Postwar A History of Europe since 1945 The Macat Library