by Tony Judt
The instrument of recall in all such cases was not memory itself. It was history, in both its meanings: as the passage of time and as the professional study of the past—the latter above all. Evil, above all evil on the scale practiced by Nazi Germany, can never be satisfactorily remembered. The very enormity of the crime renders all memorialisation incomplete.421 Its inherent implausibility—the sheer difficulty of conceiving of it in calm retrospect—opens the door to diminution and even denial. Impossible to remember as it truly was, it is inherently vulnerable to being remembered as it wasn’t. Against this challenge memory itself is helpless: ‘Only the historian, with the austere passion for fact, proof, evidence, which are central to his vocation, can effectively stand guard’.422
Unlike memory, which confirms and reinforces itself, history contributes to the disenchantment of the world. Most of what it has to offer is discomforting, even disruptive—which is why it is not always politically prudent to wield the past as a moral cudgel with which to beat and berate a people for its past sins. But history does need to be learned—and periodically re-learned. In a popular Soviet-era joke, a listener calls up ‘Armenian Radio’ with a question: ‘Is it possible’, he asks, ‘to foretell the future?’ Answer: ‘Yes, no problem. We know exactly what the future will be. Our problem is with the past: that keeps changing’.
So it does—and not only in totalitarian societies. All the same, the rigorous investigation and interrogation of Europe’s competing pasts—and the place occupied by those pasts in Europeans’ collective sense of themselves—has been one of the unsung achievements and sources of European unity in recent decades. It is, however, an achievement that will surely lapse unless ceaselessly renewed. Europe’s barbarous recent history, the dark ‘other’ against which post-war Europe was laboriously constructed, is already beyond recall for young Europeans. Within a generation the memorials and museums will be gathering dust—visited, like the battlefields of the Western Front today, only by aficionados and relatives.
If in years to come we are to remember why it seemed so important to build a certain sort of Europe out of the crematoria of Auschwitz, only history can help us. The new Europe, bound together by the signs and symbols of its terrible past, is a remarkable accomplishment; but it remains forever mortgaged to that past. If Europeans are to maintain this vital link—if Europe’s past is to continue to furnish Europe’s present with admonitory meaning and moral purpose—then it will have to be taught afresh with each passing generation. ‘European Union’ may be a response to history, but it can never be a substitute.
Photo Credits
Part One Insert
Page 1, top (Bergen-Belsen corpses): George Rodger/Time Life/Getty Images; bottom (Soviet retribution, 1946): AKG Images.
Page 2, top (Mihailović trial, 1946): John Phillips/Time Life/Getty Images; bottom (French retribution, 1944): Bettmann/Corbis.
Page 3, top (coal shortage, London, 1947): Harry Todd/Fox Photos/Getty Images; bottom (welfare booth, London, 1946): Topical Press Agency/Getty Images.
Page 4, top (Marshall Aid sugar arriving): Edward Miller/Keystone/Getty Images; middle (Marshall Aid, Greece): Bettmann/Corbis; bottom (cartoon, USSR refusing Marshall Aid): Alain Gesgon/CIRIP.
Page 5, top (Czech coup, 1948): Bettmann/Corbis; middle (Yugoslavia’s Tito, 1948): Walter Sanders/Time Life/Getty Images; bottom (Berlin Blockade, 1948): AKG Images.
Page 6, top (Schuman, Bevin and Acheson): Keystone/Getty Images; bottom (Stalin with child): Wostok Press.
Page 7, top (Berlin uprising, 1953): AKG Images; middle (Rajk Trial, 1949): Bettmann/Corbis; bottom (Gulag laborers, 1949-53): Wostok Press.
Page 8, top (Sartre in Leningrad, 1954): AFP/Getty Images; bottom (Aron at RFE, 1952): Archives familiales, Raymond Aron, Radio Free Europe.
Part Two Insert
Page 1, top (Khrushchev in USSR): Wostok Press; middle (Nagy, Tildy and Maleter): AFP/Getty Images; bottom (building Berlin Wall, 1961): AKG Images.
Page 2, top (Fassbinder poster): Ronald Grant Archive; bottom (Adenauer and Berlin Wall, 1961): AKG Images.
Page 3, top (Dutch moved out of Indonesia, 1949): Magnum/Henri Cartier Bresson; bottom (French prisoners, Indo-China, 1954): Gamma/J. C. Labbe Collection/Katz Pictures.
Page 4, top (Suez protest, 1956): ECPAD; middle (De Gaulle to power, 1958): Loomis Dean/Time Life/Getty Images; bottom (OAS poster): Alain Gesgon/CIRIP.
Page 5, top (Belgians leaving Congo, 1960): Gamma/Keystone/Katz Pictures; bottom (British Empire by Vicky, 1962): Vicky/Evening Standard 6.12.1962/Centre for the Study of Cartoons & Caricature, University of Kent.
Page 6, top (car in Czechoslovakia, 1959): Bettmann/Corbis; middle (car in Britain and women, 1960): Magnum/Bruce Davidson; bottom (Bardot at seaside): George W. Hales/Getty Images.
Page 7, top (urban planning, Glasgow, 1953): Haywood Magee/Getty Images; middle (Teddy Boys, 1955): Popperfoto; bottom (Beatles, 1964): John Leongard/Time Life/Getty Images.
Page 8, top (French students’ strike, 1968): Magnum/Bruno Barbey; middle (Italian workers’ strike, 1969): Bettmann/Corbis; bottom (Prague Spring, 1968): Bettmann/Corbis.
Part Three Insert
Page 1, top (Baader-Meinhof poster): AKG Images; bottom (Red Brigades terrorists) Bettmann/Corbis.
Page 2, top (ETA terrorists, 1982): Magnum/Harry Gruyaert; bottom (Belfast children, 1976): Davis Factor/Corbis.
Page 3, top (Portuguese immigrant workers, France, 1970): J. Pavlosky/Rapho; bottom (Italian women divorce protest, 1974): Contrasto/Katz Pictures.
Page 4, top (Juan Carlos and Franco, 1971): Bettmann/Corbis; bottom (Lisbon woman newspaper vendor): Magnum/Jean Gaumy.
Page 5, top (Brandt in Erfurt, 1970): AKG Images; bottom (Mitterrand and Thatcher, 1984): Bryn Colton/Assignments Photographers/Corbis.
Page 6, top (John Paul II in Poland, 1979): Topham Picture Library; middle (Michnik in Gdansk, 1984): Wostok Press; bottom (Gorbachev in Prague, 1987): Peter Turnley/ Corbis.
Page 7, top (train with East German refugees): Marc Deville/Gamma/Katz Pictures; middle (Prague student protest, 1989): Lubomir Kotek/AFP/Getty Images; bottom (Havel and Dubček, 1989): Chris Niedenthal/Time Life/Getty Images.
Page 8 (Lenin statue, Hungary, 1990): Wostok Press.
Part Four Insert
Page 1, top (Yeltsin and Gorbachev, 1991): Wostok Press; bottom (McDonald’s in Moscow, 1990): Sergei Guneyev/Time Life/Getty Images.
Page 2, top (Chernobyl effects, Belarus): Magnum/Paul Fusco; middle (Aral Sea disaster, 1997): Magnum/Francesco Zizola; bottom (Ukrainian demonstration, 1991): Alain Nogues/Sygma/Corbis.
Page 3, top (Gypsy poverty, Bucharest, 1996): Wostok Press; middle (eastern European sex trade, 2002): Sasha Bezzubov/Corbis; bottom (NATO at fair in Hungary, 1997): Wostok Press.
Page 4, top (Serb 1389-1989 commemoration, 1989): Wostok Press; middle (Srebrenica massacre graves): Danilo Krstanovic/Reuters; bottom (Albanian refugees, 1999): David Brauchli/Getty Images.
Page 5, top (Turkey and EU, 2004): European Press Photo Agency/Kerim Okten; bottom (French “NON EU” sign): Alternative Libertaire.
Page 6, top (Haider, 1995): Viennareport/Sygma/Corbis; middle (Kjaersgaard, 1998): Dean Francis/Sygma/Corbis; bottom (Blair and NHS reform, 2004): David Bebber/Reuters/Corbis.
Page 7, top (Moroccans in Spain, 2000): J. M. Bendich/Sygma/Corbis; bottom (Somali immigrants in Italy, 1997): Magnum/John Vink.
Page 8, top (Chirac at commemoration): Jacques Langevin/Sygma/Corbis; bottom (Schroeder at commemoration): Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters.
Suggestions for Further Reading
The literature on Europe since the Second World War is huge—and like Europe itself—is steadily expanding. The titles listed here are but a small selection of the English-language books that I have found most interesting or helpful in the writing of Postwar. Wherever possible I have listed books (and editions of books) that are likely to be available for readers to consult or purchase. For the same reason I have not included primary
sources except memoirs and the occasional contemporary report, nor have I listed published works in other languages.
This bibliography is arranged in three parts. The first section lists books dealing with the history of modern Europe, together with works devoted to particular countries or regions. The second section is divided into a number of general topics: the Cold War, immigration, culture and the arts, etc. In the third section I have grouped books by chapter, listing additional works to which I am indebted for information used in a particular chapter or that I found especially helpful.
This way of organizing the bibliography inevitably entails overlap. Thus readers interested in learning more about French intellectuals in the Cold War years might refer to books listed under various headings: France; The Cold War; Europe and the USA; Intellectuals and Ideas; as well as Chapter VII: Culture Wars. Similarly, readers seeking to learn more about the economic history of postwar Europe might find it helpful to look under General Histories, Economics or European Union, as well as various chapters where economic history is emphasized, notably Chapter III, Chapter X and Chapter XIV. Like Postwar itself, these suggestions for further reading are intended for the general reader, though I hope that students and specialists will also find them a useful guide.
GENERAL HISTORIES
Ambrosius, Gerold, and William H. Hubbard. A Social and Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Blanning, T.C.W. The Oxford History of Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Boer, Pim den, Peter Bugge, Ole Wæver, Kevin Wilson, and W. J. van der Dussen. The History of the Idea of Europe. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 1995.
Brubaker, Rogers, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. London: Fontana Press, 1998.
Chirot, Daniel. The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe: Economics and Politics from the Middle Ages Until the Early Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Cipolla, Carlo M. The Fontana Economic History of Europe. Hassocks, UK: Harvester Press, 1976.
———. The Twentieth Century. Hassocks, UK: Harvester Press, 1977.
Cook, Chris, and John Paxton. European Political Facts, 1918-90. New York: Facts on File, 1992.
Crampton, R. J., Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century and After. London: Routledge, 1997.
Crouzet, Maurice. The European Renaissance since 1945. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970.
Davis, J. People of the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1977.
Deighton, Anne. Building Postwar Europe: National Decision-Makers and European Institutions, 1948-63. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Dunn, John. The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics. (New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Fejtö, François. A History of the People’s Democracies: Eastern Europe Since Stalin. New York: Praeger, 1971.
Ferguson, Niall. The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Garton Ash, Timothy. History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s. New York: Random House, 1999.
Gillis, John R. Youth and History: Tradition and Change in European Age Relations, 1770-Present. New York: Academic Press, 1981.
Glenny, Misha. The Rebirth of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy. London: Penguin Books, 1990.
Glover, Jonathan. Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. London: J. Cape, 1999.
Graubard, Stephen Richards. Eastern Europe—Central Europe—Europe. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991.
Gress, David. Peace and Survival: West Germany, the Peace Movement, and European Security. Stanford, CA: Hoover Press, 1985.
Hitchcock, William I. The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945 to the Present. New York: Anchor Books, 2004.
Hobsbawm, E. J. The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.
———. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Horn, Gerd-Rainer, and Padraic Kenney. Transnational Moments of Change: Europe 1945, 1968, 1989. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
Jackson, Gabriel. Civilization & Barbarity in 20th-Century Europe. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1999.
James, Harold. Europe Reborn: A History, 1914-2000. (Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman, 2003.
Johnson, Lonnie. Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Kaldor, Mary. The Disintegrating West. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978.
Kennedy, Paul M. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Keylor, William R. A World of Nations: The International Order since 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Lange, Peter, George Ross, and Maurizio Vannicelli. Unions, Change, and Crisis: French and Italian Union Strategy and the Political Economy, 1945-1980. London: Allen and Unwin, 1982.
Liberman, Peter. Does Conquest Pay? The Exploitation of Occupied Industrial Societies . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Lichtheim, George. Europe in the Twentieth Century. London: Phoenix Press, 2000.
Magocsi, Paul R. Historical Atlas of Central Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002.
Magris, Claudio. Danube. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1989.
Marrus, Michael Robert. The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century . Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.
Mazower, Mark. Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century. New York: Knopf, 1999.
Mény, Yves, and Andrew Knapp. Government and Politics in Western Europe: Britain, France, Italy, Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Mitchell, B. R. European Historical Statistics, 1750-1975. New York: Facts on File, 1980.
Naimark, Norman M. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Okey, Robin. Eastern Europe, 1740-1985: Feudalism to Communism. London: Hutchinson, 1986.
Overy, R. J. Why the Allies Won. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
Paxton, Robert O. Europe in the Twentieth Century. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.
Pollard, Sidney. European Economic Integration, 1815-1970. London: Thames and Hudson, 1974.
Postan, Michael Moisse. An Economic History of Western Europe. London: Methuen, 1967.
Power, Samantha. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Rakowska-Harmstone, Teresa. Communism in Eastern Europe. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984.
Reynolds, David. One World Divisible: A Global History since 1945. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.
Roberts, J. M. A History of Europe. New York: Allan Lane, 1997.
Rothschild, Joseph. Return to Diversity: A Political History of East Central Europe since World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Rupnik, Jacques. The Other Europe. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1988.
Schöpflin, George. Politics in Eastern Europe, 1945-1992. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
Snyder, Timothy. The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
Stokes, Gale. From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Teich, Mikuláš, and Roy Porter. The National Question in Europe in Historical Context . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Urwin, Derek W. A Political History of Western Europe since 1945. New York: Longman, 1997.
van der Wee, Herman. Prosperity and Upheaval: The World Economy, 1945-1980. Berkeley: Univer
sity of California Press, 1986.
Verheyen, Dirk, and Christian Søe. The Germans and Their Neighbors. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.
Walicki, Andrzej. Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995.
Watson, Peter. A Terrible Beauty: A History of the People and Ideas That Shaped the Modern Mind. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000.
Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Wolf, Eric R. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.
Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.
Zeman, Z.A.B. The Making and Breaking of Communist Europe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
NATIONAL HISTORIES
Austria & Switzerland
Bader, William B. Austria Between East and West, 1945-1955. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966.
Bischof, Günter, and Anton Pelinka. Austro-corporatism: Past, Present, Future. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996.
Bouvier, Nicolas, Gordon Craig, and Gossman, Lionel. Geneva, Zurich, Basel: History, Culture & National Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Clute, Robert Eugene. The International Legal Status of Austria, 1938-1955. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1962.
Fossedal, Gregory A. Direct Democracy in Switzerland. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002.
Jelavich, Barbara. Modern Austria: Empire and Republic, 1815-1986. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Pauley, Bruce F. From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Pick, Hella. Guilty Victim: Austria from the Holocaust to Haider. London: I.B. Tauris, 2000.