The End of an Era? Europe, 1945-1990s
A collection of papers written for a 1991 Florence conference. There are 21 studies of various aspects of European politics and security from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1950s and then 10 articles on 1989-91. A melange, with some important contributions.
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After 40 years of division, the two former halves of Germany are discovering the psychological stresses of unity. The collapse of the German Democratic Republic released East Germans from public control and authoritarian intimidation. But with freedom, they are having to learn to make choices and to live with risk and uncertainty. West Germans are resentful at the cost of reunification and arrogant about the sad state of their Eastlander brethren. Both halves of Germany will have to deal with their separate and joint pasts. They should expect moral and psychological unity to take longer than the material recuperation of the east.
Daniel Goldhagen's book on the Holocaust--condemning the German "eliminationist" mindset toward Jews--has become an international bestseller and a datum in German-American relations. Pity, because it is a simplistic, monocausal, and unhistorical explanation of one of the most complex horrors in history. For Goldhagen, as for the Nazis, Hitler is Germany.
That Western Europe is in a state of disarray has become a commonplace. The headlines proclaim it, the capital flight confirms it. After a generation of unprecedented prosperity and progress, the West European nations, though still remarkably strong, are encountering a network of difficulties that threatens them in various realms and that seems to defy known remedies.
