Postwar: A History Of Europe Since 1945 (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
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 more endurable détente—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, 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, 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 more 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.
All the standard superlatives risk sounding a bit flat--cover blurb speak rather than real praise. Nonetheless, Judt's Postwar is brilliant, magisterial, definitive, choose your own adjective. My appreciation for it is increased by two factors that set it off from the other five star history books I've read in recent years. First, the book assembled a whole lot of fragments of information and analysis I'd been carrying around into a coherent picture. Second, I learned a lot about how to put together a massive amount of information in a clear manner, something that's very much on my mind as I edge closer to setting pen to page (or pixel to screen) on a large project about the 1960s. I'll address those factors in turn.1. The mosaic of Europe, part 1 (chronological patterns). It didn't take me long as I began reading Postwar to realize how fragmentary my knowledge of Europe has been. Judt provides the tools to put things together, both geographically and chronologically. The overarching structure of the book consists of four movements, each focusing on a particular era of post-war European experience. The first covers the period from 1945-53, centering on the immense challenges of rebuilding the physical, economic and social infrastructure of Europe in the wake of 30-some years of devastation. I'd known that the challenge was daunting, but had no idea of just how unlikely the recovery of Europe was. I'll come back to Judt's handling of the origins of the Cold War in a moment, but he makes it clear that the problems faced on each side of the Iron Curtain were intimately related. The second section of Postwar focuses on the period of Cold War stability from 1953-1971--he makes it clear that, rhetoric aside, leaders on both sides of the Cold War were in fact somewhat relieved to have a fairly stable structure in place. In the West, that was the period when a consensus on the value of planning by states and of some version of social democrat guarantees emerged in a variety of local guises. In the East, it was a period of relative stasis interrupted by the challenges to Soviet hegemony in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Judt's very good on the variety of systems developed within the East--neo-Stalinism, Reform Communism, Tito-ism. Section three, covering 1971-1989, tracks the movement through the economic discontents of the 1970s, the transition from the ideologies of social democracy to those of neo-liberalism (which took different but related forms in England, France, and Germany), and, of course, the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Empire. Judt's convincing that Gorbachev (much more popular in the West than at home) was in no sense an historical inevitability--I came out feeling like the events of 1989 were much more contingent and in some ways unlikely than I'd previous thought to be the case. Part 4, inevitably not as clear as the first three (present tense history's more or less impossible to write in the same register as that written when the aftermath's at least beginning to take form--concentrates on the emergence of the European union--not to be confused with any sort of traditional nation state--and the immense challenges posed by changing demographics, especially the presence of a large and growing Muslim community.2. The mosaic of Europe, part 2 (geographical patterns). It's not like I couldn't find Latvia or Macedonia on a map, but after having read Postwar, I feel a bit like I'd been a reasonably attentive grade schooler in my understanding of why and how geography matters in Europe. This simplifies just a bit, but Judt builds his stories around a number of geographical/political clusters. I'll list them in general order of how central they are to Judt's story. 1. The "big four" of Western Europe: France, West Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy. 2. USSR, Poland, East Germany. Especially during the first period, the disposition of the borders between those three was absolutely central. 3. The Benelux countries. Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg. 4. The Soviet client states, each facing a similar challenge, each negotiating it in its own way: Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria. 5. The Mediterraneans, which were part of the military sphere of the West but until the 1970s didn't have much in common with the social democratic or Christian democratic states: Greece, Portugal, Spain. 6. The Scandinavians. 7. The Post-Sovietn east block: the Balkans and the Baltic states, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, on the one hand, on the other, the fragments of Yugoslavia. One of the things Judt does very well is break down the chaos of the Croatian, Siberian, Bosnian wars in a clear and comprehensible, if really depressing, manner. 8. The Alpin democraticies, Switzerland and Austria. 8. The interface with Asia, itself a subject of intense concern, especially in the 21st century, but with deep historical roots. In addition to providing concise summaries of the distinctive histories of each region--the things that tie them together--Judt makes it clear that each shares various problems and attitudes with its neighbors. In addition, he's excellent on regional differences within particular states or clusters, arguing that, especially in recent years, the difference between the northern and southern regions in Italy, or the eastern and western regions in Germany, are almost as important as the differences between nations. He's also excellent on the changing importance of languages and the emergence of English as the shared language of 21st century Europe.3. Style. To move on to the technical aspects of the book, I learned a huge amount about how to organize large amounts of material. One key is that within each chronological section, Judt gives himself flexibility. Each of the chapters in part 1, for example, follows a theme through the post-war period, moving incrementally forward in time from chapter to chapter, but allowing for movement back to the beginning of the period when it helps clarify the new theme. Often, Judt will devote a series of segments (4-6 pages would be an average) to examples related to a single issue, as when he's looking at Eastern European encounters with the Soviets in the 60s. At other times, however, he'll identify the big theme and then incorporate a few sentences or a single paragraph focusing on how it plays out in a particular locale. There's nothing exactly revolutionary about the approach, but Judt has an extremely sure hand at which approach to use in a given situation.A couple of minor criticisms.1. Judt underestimates the Sixties (and yes, I'm speaking as a partisan, smile). Because he's concerned first (but not exclusively) with political and economic history--he knows a hell of a lot about ideology--Judt tends to undervalue cultural change. As a result he endorses the only partially comic comment that the radicals of the 60s just weren't serious. He's right, of course, that Paris '68 was never close to bringing down DeGaulle's government. But, as he acknowledges in the entertaining but somewhat bemused final pages on the 60s, a decade that had begun as the possession of old men, ended with a thorough questioning of authority that absolutely overthrew old ways of thinking. That's serious change in my book.2. Although he's okay on the cultural aspects of the 60s and 70s, he pretty much stops paying attention to literature, film and popular music in the last half of the book. Missed opportunity, but it does nothing to seriously undermine the monumental achievement of Postwar.
What do You think about Postwar: A History Of Europe Since 1945 (2006)?
This is an ambitious book. It's also an impassioned account of the last 60 years of European History. Judt discloses in his Introduction that his is an "opinionated" book, and that's what I usually expect from a good history book. Historians that shield themselves in objectivity display boring and usually uninteresting accounts. The most impressive feature (and related to the former) of this work are its insights. One of the reviews says that there are insights in almost every (of the 900) page. I found that to be only a slight exaggeration. Tony Judt covers an impressive amount of history in this book without getting lost in the details that would make its reading forgettable. One of the basic "subplots" is , of course, the arch of Eastern European Communism. The narration of it's rise, fall and demise and its interaction with the West in the Cold War context is extremely well accomplished. The other (and related) subplot is Western European Welfare State. The differences, advantages and disadvantages compared to the American system permeate the whole book, and it's one of Judt's most impassioned topics. One can agree or not with the author, but his is an interesting analysis specially in the current European climate. The causes of a European Union and its future are another topic of great interest. Some reviews have mention some factual errors. I found that to be the case, but they can be treated as "typos" and they don't really affect the analysis. The science and culture coverage is not complete. This in understandable in a book that covers an extensive period of time, but it's good to point the omissions here. Other reviewers have pointed out the missing information on science, which is true. The coverage on music is only marginal, and only for the decade of The Sixties. The book focuses mostly on literature and movies. There's great coverage on french intellectuals (one of Judt's areas of expertise) and a lot of movies references across the book. I found these really useful to "follow up" on some topics. Most of the historical perspective is narrated with an "insight into the future", that is, events are analyzed not from its local perspective, but from the awareness that knowing the outcome (during our present) gives us. The Epilogue, which brings this type of narration full circle, is a little masterpiece on it's own. It's a (poetic and social) summary of the whole Post-War European History, and also a justification of the type of history the author think is really valuable.
—Juan-Pablo
I have often referred to this book as a great act of hubris and an uncommon realization of the author's ambition. The sheer audacity in enclosing a continent's history over 60 years in one spine is staggering and only pales in comparison to the striking amount of detail and context Judt provides his readers. In many ways Postwar is the ultimate starting point for anyone who seeks to enhance their postwar history chops, in other ways Judt provides a perfect condensation of thousands of postwar texts, providing an original review of nearly all pertinent developments, and I again stress that no author has approached "all" in this genre to such a degree of completion. Judt does not focus solely on political development and is certainly not a "Great Man" historian, although he does provide detailed portraits of the drivers of Europe's postwar history. Instead Postwar encompasses social movements, intellectual debates, economic conditions, the slight variations of oppression in the Eastern Bloc, and the importance of music and film in imagining and conceptualizing the shifting understandings of life on the old continent after its suicide. A great achievement in prose and non-fiction, Judt's Postwar is the Complete Idiot's Guide to Postwar Europe for the thinking man.
—Michael
Een echte krachttoer: ongelofelijk uitgebalanceerd in de breedte, trefzeker in zijn grote lijnen en de details, kritisch en lucide. Judt vult het redelijk bekende politieke verhaal van de Europese geschiedenis aan met veel sociaaleconomische gegevens en mentaliteitselementen. Allemaal goed onderbouwd met statistieken, voorbeelden en citaten. Maar toch ook wat zwakke kanten: regelmatig rekent Judt af, met de generatie van mei 68 bijvoorbeeld, met de Derde Weg van Blair, met Mitterrand enzovoort. En op het einde wordt het onvermijdelijk meer een essay dan een doorwrocht historisch werk, Judt begint dan wat te zwemmen, zo is zijn houding ten aanzien van de Europese Unie nogal ambigu.Bijzonder is ook de centrale plaats die Judt geeft aan de holocaustverwerking als ijkpunt om mensen en daden te beoordelen; wordt nog eens onderstreept door het extra essay achteraan.
—Marc
