Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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44 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Europe's Guilt, 23 Nov 2005
Tony Judt's book is a lively and contentious narrative of Postwar Europe from the effects of WW2 right up to the removal of the last statue of Franco in Madrid on March 17th 2005. The key European events covered in detail: Cold War, formation of the European Union, collapse of Communism, war in the Balkans. Weaved through this is a commanding sense of social and political history from a liberal/left perspective.It is particular strong on film [and TV] which is used to underscore political and social narratives, with plenty of illustrations from memoirs and satire. The grand theme is Europe's collective guilt over the Holocaust and how the different countries have denied, then acknowledged (or not) their roles. This theme is defining for Judt and it will continue to define Europe's collective persona for future generations. On this latter issue Judt's arguments are well illustrated with examples from literature and Europe's intellectuals - both largely ignored by the politicians. Europe's future will be tested by whether or not it grow towards something more than just a grand market place for the exchange of goods and services. My only regret is the lack of a thematic bibliography - bibliographical references are within the text at the bottom of the page only. This is a big read at 830 pages - but it is engrossing
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Engrossing, but..., 15 Sep 2007
Most reviewers have understandably, and rightly, focussed on the grand themes and the author's interpretation of events and conflicting political philosophies. I read the book at least in part, however, simply to refresh my knowledge of basic historical facts about the postwar era, and I still hope to use it as reference material to meet that same end. What disappointed me, however, was to discover some very basic errors about rather trivial matters which must call into question the overall standard of research and the veracity of what is presented.
For example, on pages 482/3 we are told that the Eurovision Song Contest was first broadcast in 1970 and, in an uncomfortably lengthy rant about its shortcomings, that it was a 'hopelessly dated format' that would have been 'out of date fifteen years earlier'. Which is somewhat ironic given that it was first broadcast in 1956! We can deduce that Prof Judt obviously isn't a Sandie Shaw fan.
In another rather bizarre diatribe, this time against the UK's present-day 'Heritage' industry, he cites what he perceives as the sanitised presentation of the early history of the pottery industry by reference to Josiah Wedgwood, complaining that (schoolchildren) .."...would search in vain for evidence of how the pottery workers lived or why the region was called the Black Country". Which, of course, it wasn't; the 'Potteries' and the 'Black Country' are distinct entities divided by a broad expanse of rural Staffordshire.
On page 299 he tells us that "Englishmen were the first to conquer Everest, with the help of an appropriately colonial guide", a statement which I imagine might cause some consternation amongst denizens of New Zealand and Nepal.
It could just be that Prof Judt is weak on the softer, 'cultural' issues, but my confidence in the rather more weighty 'facts' and obscure minutiae about rather more remote areas, as presented in his book, has been rather seriously dented.
The worst - and most amusing - of several rather sloppy 'typos' appears on page 339, where we learn that in the early 1950s there were "just 89,000 private cars in Spain: one for every 314,000 persons" - so, that's about 28 Billion Spaniards having to thumb a lift...
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb, 16 Aug 2007
I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is very well-researched, full of insights and connections and most importantly, extremelty well-written. My main objection was that the Iberian countries were not well-covered and there is barely any mention of sport as a cultural influence.
The criticisms by communists below should be ignored. Judt does no more than set out accurately the history of eastern European countries alongside those of western countries. It is hardly his fault that those countries were economically and culturally backward and that their people were repressed. I should also defent Judt against the claim that he is somehow biased in favour of Turkey in some way. It is quite clear that Turkey is not within the purview of this book. Far from "one of the main claims" of the book being that Turkey is not a periphral country, Denmark gets more coverage. It is mentioned only in the context of the Cold War and it's conflict with Greece over Cyprus.
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