Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2010) by Tony Judt

 Audiobook Review

Postwar (2010)

by Tony Judt

  Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 was itself published in 2010, which puts it on the edge of being out-of-date, but I couldn't turn down the opportunity to listen to the 40 hours plus Audiobook.  It took me months, because like many titles in the LA public library system, they have one or two permanent copies of many titles, and you have to wait months between check-outs.  I'm not complaining about it, just saying it happens with longer books.  At one point I had thought that the book blog aspect of this endeavor would be focused on history, not fiction/literature, but there is a real lack of content, as the kids would say.  Cutting edge history is the domain of for-pay journals or graduate student work that isn't published.  Popular history in the United States basically means books about "the wars" (Revolutionary, Civil, World I, World War II, Vietnam) or "the presidents."   Leading writers of popular history in the US would have to include Bill O'Reilly, again, not complaining, just describing the market for history books in this country.

   Subjects that fall outside those two categories are few and far between.  I use the Bancroft Prize, which focuses on the Americas, and the Pulitzer for proxies on history books that are making the scene, but for subjects outside the US, it is even worse, in terms of supply.  Thus, Postwar, despite or perhaps because of its length, is a rare treat, a contemporary work of popular history about a subject that isn't America based (although the US does pop up relentlessly in the context of the subject), writing about areas (Central, Eastern, Southern Europe) that I don't here much about on a day-to-day basis.   In print, Postwar is 960 pages long, and I feel like that wouldn't include an index let alone footnotes.  Maybe an Index.   Judt starts at the end of World War II and methodically works his way forward, area by area, using contemporary, specialist sources to write a book for generalists (although, 960 pages calls that term into question). 

  Were it not for the Audiobook, I'm quite sure I would have never read  Postwar in print, if only because, closing in on turning 50, I believe that physically reading a book over 500 pages, in paperback or hardback, is a real ordeal.

    Trying to say anything about Postwar is tough because the subject is so large- like reading a book called History and then being asked to describe it.   The major trend is the rise and fall of Communism, though Judt's major contribution to this subject matter is combining that more familiar story with the first chapter of the European Union story.    The cut-off point in time leaves the reader wondering whether the accession of Eastern and Central European states will prove a success, and with the Ukranian conflict not even on the horizon. 

   I guess, the parts I found most relevant to the present situation were the chapters about the rise of post-communist populist/nationalist movements in central, southern and eastern Europe.  Postwar cuts off too soon to cover Brexit, and Le Pen makes a brief, late appearance, but the stuff about the split between the Czechs and the Slovaks, the situation in Hungary- where Victor Orban appears as a rabble-rouser, not yet in power and the conflict in the former Yugoslavia all gave me pause.   Another theme, or rather, absence of a theme, is any premonition that Ukraine and Russia would begin a now decade long war over...?.?>? only four years after the publication date.

  With the benefit of reading Postwar I would now argue that the war was precipitated by the eastern reach of the E.U., and Russia's feelings about that vis a vis Ukraine, which for many is considered a part of Russia and whose independence movement is fraught with Nazi's, Neo-Nazi's and the far right.  I could go on.