Tony Judt: His New Postwar History of Europe
In the introduction to his new book, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (Penguin Press), Tony R. Judt writes that the moment of inspiration for the 878-page volume came as he changed trains in Vienna's Westbahnhof in December 1989.
Mr. Judt, a professor of European studies at New York University and director of its Remarque Institute, had just returned from observing Czechoslovakia's "velvet revolution." In his taxi, Austrian radio reported the start of Romania's violent revolution. "A political earthquake," he writes, "was shattering the frozen topography of post-World War II Europe."
But 1989's upheavals did more than end the cold war. When the Iron Curtain dissolved, two separate ideas of Europe and its history were shoved together in a sudden and uneasy embrace after 45 years. Mr. Judt says a central question as he wrote Postwar was: "How do you relate the two parts together, since they are neither separate nor the same?"
First he tried to weave the two Europes together into one narrative. But that approach "drowns out the very real differences, particularly as experienced in the East," he says. "It became clear to me that I would have to treat them as different and treat them as separate, while at the same time showing how there are not similarities, but points of contact, particularly at the starting point in 1945."
Key points of contact occurred in two tumultuous years: 1956 and 1968. In 1956 the Soviet Union violently suppressed an uprising in Hungary, while France, Britain, and Israel launched a failed attack on Egypt to prevent the nationalization of the Suez Canal. In 1968 the Soviet Union sent tanks into Czechoslovakia to halt a wave of political reform, and massive student protests rocked Paris and other European capitals.
"What I tried to do," Mr. Judt says, "was to look at the major moments of international crisis — particularly in 1956 and in 1968 — when the two halves of Europe experienced crisis but in very different ways. By highlighting that, I would be able to show both that they have a history in common, but that it is a very different history on each side."...
Read entire article at Richard Byrne in the Chronicle of Higher Education
Mr. Judt, a professor of European studies at New York University and director of its Remarque Institute, had just returned from observing Czechoslovakia's "velvet revolution." In his taxi, Austrian radio reported the start of Romania's violent revolution. "A political earthquake," he writes, "was shattering the frozen topography of post-World War II Europe."
But 1989's upheavals did more than end the cold war. When the Iron Curtain dissolved, two separate ideas of Europe and its history were shoved together in a sudden and uneasy embrace after 45 years. Mr. Judt says a central question as he wrote Postwar was: "How do you relate the two parts together, since they are neither separate nor the same?"
First he tried to weave the two Europes together into one narrative. But that approach "drowns out the very real differences, particularly as experienced in the East," he says. "It became clear to me that I would have to treat them as different and treat them as separate, while at the same time showing how there are not similarities, but points of contact, particularly at the starting point in 1945."
Key points of contact occurred in two tumultuous years: 1956 and 1968. In 1956 the Soviet Union violently suppressed an uprising in Hungary, while France, Britain, and Israel launched a failed attack on Egypt to prevent the nationalization of the Suez Canal. In 1968 the Soviet Union sent tanks into Czechoslovakia to halt a wave of political reform, and massive student protests rocked Paris and other European capitals.
"What I tried to do," Mr. Judt says, "was to look at the major moments of international crisis — particularly in 1956 and in 1968 — when the two halves of Europe experienced crisis but in very different ways. By highlighting that, I would be able to show both that they have a history in common, but that it is a very different history on each side."...