Description
Book SynopsisFinalist for the Pulitzer Prize • Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award • One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year
“Impressive . . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Magisterial . . . It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive, authoritative, and yes, readable postwar history.” —The Boston Globe
Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world's most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement.
Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to rea
Trade Review“Judt's massive, learned, brilliantly detailed account of Europe's recovery from the wreckage of World War II presents a whole continent in panorama even as it sets off detonations on almost every page.” —
The New York Times Book Review“Remarkable . . . The writing is vivid; the coverage-of little countries as well as of great ones-is virtually superhuman; and above all, the book is smart. Every page contains unexpected data, or a fresh observation, or a familar observation freshly turned.” —
Louis Menand, The New Yorker
“Impressive . . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority.” —
The Wall Street Journal
“Magisterial . . . It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive, authoritative, and yes, readable postwar history.” —
The Boston Globe
“Brave and remakable.” —
The Washington Post
“Brilliant . . . A book that has the pace of a thriller and the scope of an encyclopedia . . . A very considerable achievement.” —
The New York Review of Books“Not likely to be surpassed for many years. . . . This is history writing at its best.” —
Publishers Weekly (starred review)Table of ContentsPreface & Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One: Post-War: 1945-1953
I. The Legacy of War
II. Retribution
III. The Rehabilitation of Europe
IV. The Impossible Settlement
V. The Coming of the Cold War
VI. Into the Whirlwind
VII. Culture Wars
Coda. The End of Old Europe
Part Two: Prosperity and Its Discontents: 1953-1971
VIII. The Politics of Stability
IX. Lost Illusions
X. The Age of Affluence
XI. The Social Democratic Hour
XII. The Spectre of Revolution
XIII. The End of the Affair
Part Three: Recessional: 1971-1989
XIV. Diminished Expectations
XV. Politics in a New Key
XVI. A Time of Transition
XVII. The New Realism
XVIII. The Power of the Powerless
XIX. The End of the Old Order
Part Four: After the Fall: 1989-2005
XX. A Fissile Continent
XXI. The Reckoning
XXII. The Old Europe—:and the New
XXIII. The Varieties of Europe
XXIV. Europe as a Way of Life
Epilogue
From the House of the Dead: An Essay on Modern European Memory
Index
