Reviews

Epoca Postbelică. O istorie a Europei de după 1945, by Tony Judt

ilovebooks7177's review against another edition

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5.0

I loved this book and I learned a lot about Europe.

paubre's review against another edition

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4.0

I read this as an audiobook and I don't think I would have gotten through it if I hadn't done it that way. Not because the book is bad, but it is dense, and huge. The audiobook is 43 hours long, and it took me over 2 years to listen to all of it. Historical analysis rather than history, Judt's point of view has given me new insights into recent European history. Towards the end it does become a bit painful that Judt didn't know what would happen next, but the reader does. I guess that must always be the case with history that ends in the present. I'm sure Judt would have loved to write an addendum at the end of 2018.

thomcat's review against another edition

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medium-paced

5.0

 Ultra complete history of Europe from the end of World War II through recent times. Chapters are roughly chronological, sections are roughly country specific, but there is an element of personal observation here also. It has a lot of pages, but to cover the subject matter, it also doesn't have quite enough.

Partitions, unifications, resettlement, atrocities, and economic policy are all part of the tale here. I could fill this entire review with the things I learned here, and I read a lot of history. Part of the problem is I was out of college just as the fall of the Soviet Union was happening. I remember people glued to the TV, and my response was "I'll read about the important things they aren't showing us in the history books." Friends, this is that book.

Some of the sentences do run on a bit, and some countries got a lot more ink than others. I seriously doubt anything major was left out, though. The epilogue covers how countries first ignored and now are admitting and dealing with the Holocaust. This is a perfect counterpoint to the immigration and civil wars covered throughout the book, hearkening all the way back to resettlement in Eastern Europe right after the war. Sources are mostly footnotes, though it has an excellent index. Took me more than a month to read, but highly recommended for anyone who loves history, recent history, or for that matter, lives in Europe.

I look forward to reading When the Facts Change: Essays, 1995-2010, published posthumously by his widow (also a historian). 

jacquesdevilliers's review against another edition

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With Russia's military build-up on the Ukrainian border, this made for well-timed reading! Indeed, I can't think of a better single book for taking the historical pulse of contemporary Europe.

Everyone will have their particular gripes about this or that historical episode not receiving enough coverage (my own gripe is particularly insignificant: I don't like Judt's taste in films). But this should not short-change what a monumental achievement Postwar is. Judt seems peerless in his panoramic erudition. The book is packed with revelations and compelled me towards a number of reappraisals. Yes, it is a very long Postwar indeed. But Judt's deft writing often generates a sense of historical momentum in which both European subjects and this non-European reader were caught up. Now I'm left in queasy wonderment at what comes next, and sad that Judt is no longer around to say anything about it.

bellatora's review against another edition

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5.0

I'm a history nut, but my specialty is pre-20th century. In fact, post-WWII history is my least favorite kind. I also am young enough that only the last chapter or two contained events that I saw on the news or read about in the paper. Given that, while I had a general idea of the outline of post-WWII Europe (Marshall Plan, USSR, fall of the Berlin wall, bloodshed in Bosnia/Kosovo), I discovered--to my embarassment--that a lot of this book contained material of which I was ignorant. For example, before reading this if you had asked me who Tito was, I would have guessed some black and white film star or the Lone Ranger's friend (who is in fact named Tanto) and not that he was the Yugoslavian dictator (and even Yugoslavia was some vague, half-known concept to me before reading this book).

Postwar is impressive for containing so much information and still being so readable. Still, it suffers the same faults that every general history inevitably suffers from: having too many names to keep track of, skimming over some events/people (sometimes assuming knowledge that I didn't have), and including lots of statistics necessary to illustrate a point but that tend to be overwhelming for the reader. However, if you don't try to follow every bit of minutiae and don't try to keep track of the abundance of names and instead focus on the general trends and themes, you will be well-served (and many of the more imporant names should already be familiar: Hitler, Stalin, Yeltsin, Thatcher, etc.). Another thing to keep in mind is that this is predominately a political and economic history and not the social history I tend to prefer. So while there are some interesting historical anecdotes and obversations on aspects of European culture, these are few and far between. To me, this makes the book a bit drier than the popular histories I tend to read. However, I was a history major and know a dull scholarly text when I see one. It might be long and it might be fact-heavy but it is also informative, clear and digestable for a historical dilettante.

whatadutchgirlreads's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

tanya_pryslupska's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

5.0

ljohnston931's review against another edition

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4.0

Yeah I only retained <10% of this, but I liked learning more about small European countries. And it’s written in a say that’s not painful to read!

simon_levi's review against another edition

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3.0

Overall good and sometimes great. Some chapters are stronger and more lucid than others.

Why not 4 or 5 stars?
The book would've needed more editorial work (better organization, fact checking and less repetition) and lacks the eye-opening insights found in other highly rated history books by e. g. Yuval Harari or Egon Friedell.

unisonlibrarian's review against another edition

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5.0

As much as I enjoyed this book, it was a relief to finish. At 1000 pages it was starting to give me back problems from carrying it round for so long. Tony Judt is a left-leaning historian and intellectual, and this is his account of Europe since 1945. The two main themes are the shadow World War II cast over the continent, and the ideological conflict between Communism and Capitalism that collapsed along with the Berlin Wall in 1989.

In this totemic history Judt covers nationality and nationalisms, ethnic conflict, social deprivation, democracy, culture and political progression. He charts the change from a Europe that could do nothing than enter in to brutal and mostly needless wars in to one that has become obsessed with interaction and unity, but not at all costs, at least not at the cost of the nation state. We see the idiocy of various European leaders, the mendacity of others and the bravery of a few that have created the sphere in which we live today as entities within a multi-ethnic land of plenty.

The author however does not look at recent history through rose tinted spectacles. With the dawning of Thatcherism and individualism it is true that nations have become richer, people however have become poorer. How was this so? Through the lack of a genuine redistributive network and the failure of genuine social democracy that got caught in the headlights of unrestricted capitalism. Communism too is given a beating by Judt, at least as far as the European models of it go. Stalinism is the main target and it was a lost opportunity when Tito emerged as strong enough to challenge Stalin only to become him at a later juncture. Once Stalin had gone, his shadow remained in the policies that his generation echoed once it was “their turn” to be the party chairman.

Religion is given short shrift and there are plenty of nods to bygone intellectuals and academics who stood up to the regimes in which they lived and in rare occurrences, took power. Such things hardly seem possible now within the Europe that has bought in to the American consensus of celebrity politics and the dumbing down of intellectualism. He argues that despite internecine conflicts that Europe has become a much safer place since World War II. While factually correct, it would be interesting to see if the wider world outside Europe is any safer, with many wars, slaughtering and ethnic cleansing exercises coming about in former European colonial bodies, and at times with the tacit knowledge or agreement of the forgotten colonial masters.

There is, however, little to find fault with in this book. Some countries could have been dissected more closely, but as I mentioned before at 1000 pages it is already large enough. It finishes with an excellent epilogue concerning European memory, where Judt argues that the country that needed, and to some extent still needs to exorcise its past through truth and reconciliation is actually France, and not Germany who painfully came to terms with their role in World War II long ago. France has continually tried to separate itself from Vichy France, when in fact the two were interchangeable. Jacques Chirac made the first moves and there has been steady progression. There remains, inevitably, some way to go. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand recent global history. One cannot understand the 20th century without a working knowledge of Europe. It may be the last century in which European events dominated the world stage, but what events they were!