Europe Since World War II: The Big Change - Hardcover

Europe since World War II has seen many changes, and a number of books on the subject have appeared in the last twenty-five years. Starting from the van­tage point of the 1970s, and with a fresh, new emphasis on the improvements in the everyday life of the average worker, Norman Luxenburg here gives us an up-to-date, concise account of the European nations after the war.

Cutting through the welter of ex­tremely detailed political and territorial issues other books on this subject have presented, Luxenburg sketches the rele­vant matters in prewar and postwar Eu­rope and concentrates on the ?big picture”?the growth that has taken place since the war.

Luxenburg’s most important chapter describes the big change as being neither geographical nor political. The generation of West Europeans coming to maturity in the 1970s, he notes, is the best-paid, best-fed, best-housed, best-clothed, and best-educated generation Europe has ever produced. Hence, the great change and the greatest revolution since the two wars is the improvement of technology and productivity on the farm and in industry.

The book’s wealth of clear statistical and illustrative material in concise form makes it a convenient-size handbook for the study of modern European history. General readers interested in a survey of the subject will find the book valuable as well as interesting.