Europes Troubled Peace: 1945 to the Present

This revised second edition offers an integrated overview of the history of Europe, East and West, now extended to cover the period from the end of World War II to the end of the first decade of the twenty–first century.

The volume opens with a discussion of the impact of World War II in Europe. It then proceeds chronologically through a detailed discussion of the Cold War, the divergent histories of Eastern and Western Europe between the 1950s and the 1980s, and the moves toward integration that accelerated as the century drew to a close. The author examines the rapid and dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the USSR that led to the end of the Cold War, and offers a new interpretation of the 1990s.

A new final chapter assesses the role of Europe within the wider world of the twenty–first century, and reflects on issues such as immigration, ethnic tensions, and changing ideas about the memory of conflict in the twentieth century. It also addresses the financial crisis and the related crisis in European integration, the impact of the War on Terror on Europe, and the redefinition of Europe following EU enlargement.

List of Maps
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Europe′s Troubles
1. The War and its Legacy
2. Europe between the Powers, 1945–1953
3. Restoration, Reconstruction and Revolution: Europe, 1945–1950
4. Consolidating Western Europe, 1950–1963
5. Western Europe in the 1960s
6. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, from 1953 to the 1970s
7. Western Europe in the 1970s: Downturn and Détente
8. Western Europe in the 1980s: The Era of Thatcher, Mitterrand and Kohl
9. European Integration: From Rome to Maastricht, 1957–1992
10. The Fall of the Communist Regimes: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1980–1991
11. Europe after the Cold War
12. Europe in the new millennium

Tom Buchanan is Reader in Modern History & Politics at Oxford University s Department for Continuing Education, where he is Director of Studies in History and Politics. He has published extensively on the relationship between Britain and the Spanish Civil War. He is currently completing a major book on China and the British Left, 1925 1976. His other research interests include the history of Amnesty International.