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Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of…
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Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (original 2012; edition 2013)

by Keith Lowe

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7482829,843 (4.14)20
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.
Member:ftpfarragher
Title:Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II
Authors:Keith Lowe
Info:Penguin (2013), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 480 pages
Collections:Your library, To read
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Savage continent: Europe in the aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe (2012)

  1. 20
    Year Zero: A History of 1945 by Ian Buruma (gust)
  2. 10
    Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt (marieke54)
  3. 00
    My Hundred Children by Lena Kuchler-Silberman (meggyweg)
    meggyweg: This memoir by a woman who founded a Jewish orphanage in Poland immediately after the war shows quite a lot of the violence, tension and problems Lowe's book describes.
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English (24)  Spanish (1)  Catalan (1)  French (1)  All languages (27)
Showing 1-5 of 24 (next | show all)
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. ( )
  Anniik | Nov 26, 2022 |
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. ( )
  Jeff.Rosendahl | Apr 20, 2022 |
Brutal and unrelenting. An extremely hard book to read, where every new page brings to light a new atrocity. The machinations of the world powers post WWII are thoroughly sifted through and show that no one, including those bronzed heroes of yesteryear was on the side of angels. Highly recommended. ( )
  JeremyBrashaw | May 30, 2021 |
Good stuff--well written, plenty of facts, a few too many anecdotes, but not too long. Not quite as good as 'The Vanquished,' which is a similar idea applied to the first world war, but certainly more worth reading than yet another book about how world war II started or played out. ( )
  stillatim | Oct 23, 2020 |
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. ( )
  spounds | Jul 19, 2020 |
Showing 1-5 of 24 (next | show all)
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Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Première partie

« Je pensais que vous seriez là, à m’attendre […]. Au lieu de quoi, j’ai été accueilli par la puanteur tenace des cendres et les trous béants de notre maison en ruine. »

Samuel Puterman, à son retour à Varsovie, en 1945
Première partie

« Nous pouvions constater la destruction matérielle, mais les effets des perturbations économiques, politiques et sociales à grande échelle et des ravages psychologiques de cinq années de refonte de l’Europe en machine de guerre, sous la férule de Hitler, nous ont complètement échappé. »

Dean Acheson, sous-secrétaire d’État américain, 1947
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To Vera
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Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Introduction
Imaginez un monde sans institutions. Un monde où les frontières entre pays semblent s’être dissoutes, en ne laissant qu’un paysage unique, infini, où les individus déambulent à la recherche de communautés disparues. Il n’existe plus de gouvernements, ni à l’échelle nationale ni même à l’échelon local. [...]
Première partie
L’héritage de la guerre

1
La destruction matérielle

En 1943, Karl Baedeker, l’éditeur de guides de voyage, publia un guide du Generalgouvernement – cette petite partie de la Pologne qui s’était vu accorder un semblant d’autonomie sous domination nazie. [...]
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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.

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