Rating: 
Summary: A Triumph
Review: "An excellent book! A thorough, lively interpretation of how Europe got to where it is today and the struggles Europeans had to overcome, sometimes with US help but often in defiance of the USA. In addition to being well-researched, Hitchcock illuminates his themes with very telling details from everyday life and biographies of overlooked historical figures that inform his thesis. A brisk, well-informed counter to the usual Europe-bashing in today's media. Highly recommended."
Rating:
Summary: A Triumph
Review: "An excellent book! A thorough, lively interpretation of how Europe got to where it is today and the struggles Europeans had to overcome, sometimes with US help but often in defiance of the USA. In addition to being well-researched, Hitchcock illuminates his themes with very telling details from everyday life and biographies of overlooked historical figures that inform his thesis. A brisk, well-informed counter to the usual Europe-bashing in today's media. Highly recommended."
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: Dr. Hitchcock's work is an excellent source of information for anyone who is interested in recent European history. It especially helped me put current affairs in their historical context. Definitely worth the price of the book and more importantly, the time invested in reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent General Overview in <500 pages
Review: If you are looking for a solid overview of Europe since 1945 in less than 500 pages, this is it. Sure, in other books you can find more detail about each event or with all points of view presented, but I haven't seen any books so balanced and so concise. I wish I could find other important topics covered in a similar fashion (e.g. WWI and WWII).Regarding style, Hitchcock keeps things interesting. Organizationally, each of the 12 or so chapters covers a particular aspect of European history and in the beginning of each chapter he sents forth his themes, which is very helpful. At the end, you feel that not only do you understand the events, but the underlying themes and how they are manifested in current events. Overall, excellent and very enjoyable as an introduction to the period. If you are more of an expert, this is not for you.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent General Overview in <500 pages
Review: If you are looking for a solid overview of Europe since 1945 in less than 500 pages, this is it. Sure, in other books you can find more detail about each event or with all points of view presented, but I haven't seen any books so balanced and so concise. I wish I could find other important topics covered in a similar fashion (e.g. WWI and WWII). Regarding style, Hitchcock keeps things interesting. Organizationally, each of the 12 or so chapters covers a particular aspect of European history and in the beginning of each chapter he sents forth his themes, which is very helpful. At the end, you feel that not only do you understand the events, but the underlying themes and how they are manifested in current events. Overall, excellent and very enjoyable as an introduction to the period. If you are more of an expert, this is not for you.
Rating:
Summary: Gives a sense of how much distance Europe has travelled
Review: Lately, the economic performance of Europe has come in for some rather critical comments from commentators on both sides of the Atlantic, in particular in comparison with the performance of the US economy. To this, in defense, one could reply that the data are not exactly comparable or that life is about more than gdp figures. However the most interesting answer is found when looking back 50 years at the basket case Europe was, economically, politically and militarily.
At the end of World War 2, Europe counted tens of millions of displaced people, gdp per capita was only half that of the US, politically speaking Germany was a blank sheet, Stalin was closing the Iron Curtain and threatening the rest of Europe, despite Allied victory over Germany and Italy fascist dictatorships remained in place in Spain and Portugal, Greece was in a state of civil war and threatened to become another communist satellite state and Europe was a patchwork of nation states with relatively little internal trade flows.
This book describes how over a period of 50 years, Europe has become what it is today : at peace, democratic and prosperous (although more so for Western Europe than for Eastern Europe which is lagging).
Some of the chapters I found most interesting are how it was Europeans who begged Americans to stay militarily involved in Europe after the war in order to be a deterrent for Stalin, what exactly was the impact of the Marshall plan, how did the European Union originate, the importance of the Ostpolitik of the German chancellor Brandt, etc...
The author tries to remain as factual and neutral as possible about the EU as an institution, which may disappoint some readers. However I could not escape the conclusion myself that many of the positive changes during the last 50 years, such as the democratisation of Spain, Portugal and Greece, were at least indirectly in part due to the influence of the EU states on the rest of Europe. By making democracy and human rights a pre-condition for membership of the EU, the EU has forced many countries to become more like it : a civilised place to live, possibly not as rich as the US, but better off in general than anybody would have dared to forecast in the ruins of 1945.
Rating: 
Summary: Good political history, weak style
Review: This book provides a solid political history of Europe from 1945, covering both Eastern and Western Europe. It is better as a reference work than a coherent story. If you want to a summary of the events of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, or the riots in France and Italy in 1968, this book is for you. Many names from the past (Jaruzelski? General Spinola?) appear in its pages. The book is not a social or economic history. There is no meaningful discussion of the causes and impact of changes in sexual mores, for instance, or of living standards (except with national statistics), or of the decline in the birth rate. The discussion of immigration and the problems it is causing is superficial, and is one place where the political prejudices of the author show through - any opponent of immigration is automatically categorized as "far right". Finally the style is poor. It consists of short sentences. It has been dumbed-down, probably so that the book can be sold as a textbook for students with short attention spans. This makes it an unenjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Good political history, weak style
Review: This book provides a solid political history of Europe from 1945, covering both Eastern and Western Europe. It is better as a reference work than a coherent story. If you want to a summary of the events of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, or the riots in France and Italy in 1968, this book is for you. Many names from the past (Jaruzelski? General Spinola?) appear in its pages. The book is not a social or economic history. There is no meaningful discussion of the causes and impact of changes in sexual mores, for instance, or of living standards (except with national statistics), or of the decline in the birth rate. The discussion of immigration and the problems it is causing is superficial, and is one place where the political prejudices of the author show through - any opponent of immigration is automatically categorized as "far right". Finally the style is poor. It consists of short sentences. It has been dumbed-down, probably so that the book can be sold as a textbook for students with short attention spans. This makes it an unenjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Europe Mastered
Review: This fascinating book covers a much neglected topic with both style and substance. For too long, the history of the postwar period has been written with eyes on the superpowers, alone. What Hitchcock masterfully does is bring Europe back to the center of the story. He's made good use of the existing historiography, and has asked new questions of previously examined data. And, most importantly, the book is a good read--accessible, engaging and thought provoking. For anyone interested in the history of the Cold War and the post-Cold War, this book is essential reading.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, but not as good as P. Thody
Review: This is certainly not a shoddy or uneven book; in fact, it's a useful book to have, distilling as it does many event-filled years into a coherent book. It is informative and well-written. It covers the territory with a deft mixture of facts and dates, and interpretation, as well as doing so in readable English. It's the kind of book that you could give to your grandparents, who probably lived (as adults) through the 1945-to-2002 period; to your uncle or aunt who doesn't read more than a book or two per month; or to your nephew or niece at college, preparing to take History 101 or even History 401. But if you really want to read a graceful, humorous, insightful, wise and sometimes mildly polemical book on the same era/epoch, get a hold of a copy of Philip Thody's marvelous "Europe Since 1945" (Routledge 2000). Thody's book covers the same ground but does so with more panache and flair. Hitchcock is good, but Thody is better, and while neither is an ideological (let alone Marxist) radical, Thody's work is preferable because it is spiced with a lifetime of learning, and leavened with a mordant wit. The destination of both books might be quite similar -- politically AND historically speaking -- the journey is nevertheless more enjoyable with Thody as the guide.
|
