A review by dwrs
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt

4.0

I have an enormous number of notes for this very long book, but they are mostly things I thought were interesting, and I don't know if I'll ever put them here. The book itself is simply a history, an extraordinarily well-written one, though, and one that overuses the phrase "make a virtue of necessity" and the word "penumbra." It is not a history focused on people or anectdotes, and hardly has anything that would have it depart from the analytical mode. There is a bit of balkanization; some of the chapters or sections are essays-about something, where that something isn't just the geographical areas in question during the years in question--which is fine; that would be unwieldly, it just had an academic resonance, and can sometimes make elisions glare. (But now as I write that, maybe all big-book histories are like that? How embarrassing...) In such a long book, I'm sure there are counter-examples to what I've just said, but I suspect also that they are few. (It is a male history, the kind of male Judt mentions being in The Memory Chalet, with his spatial capabilities and his father's love of cars.)

This being my third Judt in a row, there are certain recurrences, and in fact I can't remember what's in what, but it doesn't matter. I say all of that only in defense of my view that I liked this book very much, but it did not blow my mind. But then, it wasn't trying to.