Covering the period from the end of the Second World War to the Millennium, this book offers an integrated overview of the history of Europe, east and west.
The volume opens with a discussion of the impact of the Second World War in Europe, demonstrating how the foundations of the post-war order were laid in the final phase of the war. 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 towards 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 that focuses on the emergence of a united ‘Europe’ in the European Union, on the elusive quest for a ‘Third Way’, and on the political and economic transition in eastern Europe.
