Europe's Troubled Peace: 1945 to the Present, 2nd Edition

This revised second edition offers an integrated overview of the history of Europe, East and West, now extended to cover the period from the end of World War II to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century.

The volume opens with a discussion of the impact of World War II in Europe. 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 toward 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.

A new final chapter assesses the role of Europe within the wider world of the twenty-first century, and reflects on issues such as immigration, ethnic tensions, and changing ideas about the memory of conflict in the twentieth century. It also addresses the financial crisis and the related crisis in European integration, the impact of the “War on Terror” on Europe, and the redefinition of Europe following EU enlargement.