At the end of World War II, Europe lay smoldering in ruins. Millions had died, its infrastructure was in ruins, its economy on the brink of collapse, and the sense of civilisation itself seemed to have vanished. How did Europe re-emerge from such now unimaginable moral and material devastation? Postwar is a gripping account of Europe’s transformation from historical ruins to a vaguely social democratic zone of peace and prosperity under the shadow of the Cold War. It tells two parallel stories: the rise of the Western Europe, and the initial relative depravation of and then renewal of Eastern Europe. It is wide ranging in its geographical coverage, and the focus shifts from one region to the other under an overall chronological framework. The descriptions of the state of Europe during the forties are riveting, with an eye for the telling statistic and anecdote.Judt’s political judgements are also, for the most part sensible, if not particularly original or profound. And there are numerous incidental pleasures, not the least amongst them an account of European history refracted through its cinema.But this is also a work of advocacy of sorts in two senses. The first is methodological advocacy. Its strength is primarily as a political history set against the backdrop of a war of ideas. European politics is, on the view, a product of deliberate choices people have made. It is not an artifact of an over determined history.But Postwar also dwells upon the attractions of a European model and way of life as a counterpoise for America. Judt himself grew up in what now seems like the high point of in the creation of a welfare state: England in the fifties. He charts Europe’s disillusionment with its own achievement during the sixties, where it seemed that the comforts of a bourgeoisie welfare state would fall prey to cries for a more radical revolution. Judt is also up front about his disillusionment with this disillusionment: he has no doubt that sixties were the last gasp of a politics of illusion, created not by masses of people, but disenchanted intellectuals and a bourgeoisie that was above all else, bored with its own secure life style.While Judt acknowledges the extraordinary role America played in giving Europe shape in form, he argues that the Americanisation of Europe can be overestimated. There are clear differences between Europe and America: Europe has chosen a better quality of life over the relentlessness of work, social protection over cutthroat competition, a place (albeit shaky) for high culture over consumerism, and the imperatives of peace over the allure of playing a major world historical role.But is this model sustainable? Judt seems to be a little equivocal on this. On the one hand, he has absolutely no doubt that a strong welfare state is not incompatible with greater productivity; there is no a priori reason to suppose that Europe must become America. On the other hand the sheer weight of global competitive pressures and demographic concerns will force Europe to adapt. There is no doubt that post-war Europe was an astonishing historical achievement. Judt is cautiously optimistic that, despite the challenge of multiculturalism, globalisation, European expansion, Europe can retain its identity in the twenty first century. But it will have to transfigure itself from a community bound by a negative unity—a determination to avoid the horrific excesses of the first half of the twentieth century—into something more positive.Europe has been something of a pioneer in the invention of political forms. Ideologies of the nation state made much of Europe’s political achievement possible, even as it underwrote the murderousness of its history. The European Union, still difficult to characterise easily, is a novel political form and Judt is hopeful for its future. But what ideals will animate it still remains unclear.
