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The Struggle for Europe: The History of the Continent since 1945. By William I. Hitchcock (London: Prole Books, 2004; pp. 525. Pb. 9.99); A History of Europe in the Twentieth Century. By Eric Dorn Brose (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2004; pp. 528. 19.99). There has been a recent upsurge in publications on twentieth-century European history. The trend is unsurprising. The end of the Cold War and the relentless conict in Iraq provide scholars with new avenues for the theoretically complex and hazardous task of Europe-gazing. Nevertheless, while not threadbare, the register of work on post-1945 Europe is less weighty than that on the pre-1945 period. William Hitchcock and
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Eric Dorn Brose apply themselves to rectifying this shortcoming with some skill. Hitchcocks narrative stakes the terrain from 1945 to the end of the Cold War. It is ambitiously sweeping, despite familiar resonances. The break-up of the Grand Alliance after Yalta and Potsdamthe seeds of the Cold War, and the descent of the Iron Curtainfeature in the opening section. The complexity of relations behind the Curtain is noted, including Albanian and Yugoslav transgressions from the Stalinist line (p. 118). Western Europes impressive economic recovery and the debate about market integration occur in tow with the pressures of decolonisationHitchcock delves in particular into the Algerian Civil War and the Suez crisis. Eastern Europe under the Soviet yoke (the book focuses heavily on Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia) faced its own post-Stalin challenges, deriving some benet from Khrushchevs policies of thaw, though these were, as is rightly pointed out, contradictory. Then came the ascent of the European Economic Community, including Gaullist efforts to limit the reach of American inuence. The initial optimism prompted by the magic of Europes Wirtschaftswunder was dented by the tensions of the late 1960s. East mirrored West, and studentdriven protests shook many European cities in 1968. The respective blocs closed ranks by re-enforcing the status quo (p. 256). The West attempted to open a dialogue with the EastBrandts Ostpolitik was launched, with its aspirations for mutual co-existence (p. 295). Hitchcock then recounts the miracles and calamities of a post-Cold War Europe. The end of the 1980s saw the borders between East and West breached by refugees from the East. The curtain lifted, prompting the fall of Communist regimes in the Soviet orbit and subsequently the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The misnamed Long Peace ended with the spectre of communisms retreat in the East and the allure of an enlarged and politically more active European Union. On its heels came a virulent nationalism that reasserted itself in the Balkans in the Yugoslav Civil War. It also surfaced in the immigration debate, prompting the question posed in Chapter Fifteen: Who is a European? A brief discussion of the fraying relations between the USA and Europe in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 2001 and the divisions prompted by the Iraq War is also offered. European unity comes across as the geopolitical success of the twentieth century, though the role of the USA behind it, with its injection of Marshall Plan money and the NATO Alliance system, is played down. Europes success is a miracle, proposes Hitchcock, because it was the site of immemorial friction. Despite its strengths, there are, however, some points of contention. There are occasional bursts of moral indignation. Hitchcock lectures: Europeans, he says, were ignorant of the impact of the terrorist attacks on the American psyche (p. 466). He also scolds, and he is scathing about Europes record on nationalism in the 1990s. The Dayton creation (Republika Srpska) is no better than a nostalgic backwater for brandy-sipping Bosnian Serb veterans reminiscing about pillage and rape (p. 402). Atrocities committed by other sides are noted by Hitchcock but under-emphasied, while European readings of history by the statesmen of the time are given short shrift. Brose eschews any such tendencies in his highly accessible synthesis of twentieth-century Europe. The book is neatly organised around a coherent thematic pattern. His rst, and perhaps the best, focuses on Europes attempts
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to wage, control and deter war. The second deals with the perennial issue of nationalism in the European system of states. The third traverses authoritarian political philosophies and their democratic-liberal foes. The fourth, and one that plays to the authors strengths, incorporates the technological inuences that shaped European life. Nor does Brose shy away from including examples from the cultural sphere, peppering his work with literary and artistic references, both high- and lowbrow, where appropriate. He is also sharp with anecdotes: his opening chapter to the 1968 student revolt is poignant and personal. There is a strong elaboration of Germanic themes: the author is evidently comfortable in describing the Weimar period, and the challenges posed by issues of German guilt after World War II. Discussions about the works of Thomas Mann and the Group of 47 are informative and pertinent. He has sought to include Soviet inuences, with detailed sections on Eastern Europe. These complement specic subsections on Americanisation in Europe, the terrorism of both creedsCommunist and Islamicand the rise of gender politics. The author has also borne in mind the insatiability of modern audiences for the image: the text is shot through with pictures and illustrations of good quality. Any history of Europe is bound to be challenged for what it leaves out. A contributor to that ever Euro-sceptic body of thought, the Spectator (1 February, 2003) went so far as to call the task ludicrous, with generalisations about the continent being, except those regarding the Communist Bloc, fatally awed. Both authors have engaged with this challenge with some distinction.
doi:10.1093/ehr/cel413 BINOY KAMPMARK

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Selwyn College, Cambridge

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