Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (original 2012; edition 2013)by Keith Lowe
Work InformationSavage continent: Europe in the aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe (2012)
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. An interesting and well written history of an understudied historical period. I'd really never read anything about the years immediately after WWII in Europe, and I guess I'd just never really thougth about how horrible it must have been. Great book. ( ) This book should be required reading for serious WWII historians. Lowe deals with a subject that is often glossed over....what happened (and how it has been mythologized) in the immediate aftermath of the war. "The story of Europe in the immediate postwar period is therefore not primarily one of reconstruction and rehabilitation - it is firstly a story of the descent into anarchy." Further, Lowe opens our eyes to how the story was not simply one of a local person supporting their state against the Nazi occupiers. That local person could also have been fighting wars against people of different religions, different ethnicities, against the government of the state, against other neighbors who might be of different political persuasions, etc. "The sheer variety of grievances that existed in 1945 demonstrates not only how universal the war had been, but also how inadequate is our traditional way of understanding it." This _IS_ a difficult book to read....both because of the subject matter and keeping track of the particular conflict Lowe is focusing on at the moment, and how that conflict relates to other conflicts. But that doesn't make it unreadable or not worth the time it takes to read it. Can't recommend highly enough. This book is not for the faint of heart. Every time you think you've just read the worst thing that humans can do to other humans, you turn the page and realize that wasn't the worst. It explains why Europe was the way it was when I was growing up and even into early adulthood, but I had never heard or read of these things before. Wow. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesPerrin, Tempus (617) Has as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Recounts the disorder in Europe after World War II, describing the brutal acts against Germans and collaborators, the anti-Semitic beliefs that reemerged, and the Allied-tolerated expulsions of citizens from their ancestral homelands. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.554History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- 1945-1999 1945-1949LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |