Table of Contents

Preface & 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

About the Author

Tony Judt was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies at New York University, as well as the founder and director of the Remarque Institute, dedicated to creating an ongoing conversation between Europe and the United States. He was educated at King’s College, Cambridge, and the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and also taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Berkeley. Professor Judt was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, The New York Times, and many journals across Europe and the United States. He is the author or editor of fifteen books, including Thinking the Twentieth Century, The Memory Chalet, Ill Fares the Land, Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, and Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, which was one of The New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2005, the winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He died in August 2010 at the age of sixty-two.

Reviews

“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)

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 excellent 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. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (On sale Oct. 10) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

"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)