Postwar: Dawn of Today's Europe - Hardcover

(Postwar tells the story of how today s Europe - that astonishingly prosperous and cohesive community of nations - emerged from the chaos and debris of World War II. The book opens on VE Day in 1945 and ends with the establishment of the EEC in 1957. During those dozen years history took one of its giant forward leaps. Old rivalries were submerged as the peoples of Western Europe set about creating a new mode of life for themselves. Richard Mayne s panoramic account brings this watershed period to vivid life. We meet Jan Masaryk, tragic victim of Czechoslovakia s Communist coup; Ludwig Erhard, father of Germany s economic miracle ; Boris Pasternak, who emerged from the cultural thaw in Soviet Russia to win the Nobel Prize; Christian Dior, whose New Look reestablished Paris overnight as the world s fashion capital; and Jean Monnet, canny architect of European economic integration. Postwar provides a front-row seat at the major events of these crucial years - the Nuremberg Trials; the Marshall Plan; the Berlin blockade and airlift; Russia s explosion of an atomic bomb, and the spy fever that followed; the throes of decolonization, from India to Dien Bien Phu; and the dawning of la vie en rose, as Europe achieved a new prosperity and optimism. This is a perceptive and enthralling picture of Europe s miracle years written by an eye witness and keen student of the period)