Book · 2005
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
by Tony Judt
A 900-page account of how Europe rebuilt, forgot, and reinvented itself from 1945 to the fall of the Iron Curtain and beyond — drawn from archives on both sides of the divide.
What does Reddit think of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945?
All 19 mentions of Postwar live in r/AskHistorians, and the pattern is telling: historians cite it not as background reading but as the sourced authority on postwar European politics, denazification, and economic reconstruction. The top-upvoted thread (↑467) on Allied deradicalization leans on Judt to establish what occupation actually required — a defeated country, not merely a persuaded one. Another thread (↑100) pulls the book's data on German public opinion between 1946 and 1949, where a majority still endorsed Nazism as a good idea poorly executed. That's the kind of number historians need and Judt provides. The book shows up in threads on hyperinflation, car ownership patterns under socialism, poverty in the 1960s. It gets used the way a reference work gets used. Mention volume has grown: three times in 2024, the highest single-year count in the tracked window.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Postwar European reconstruction and the politics of occupation
- · Denazification and the persistence of Nazi-era attitudes in West Germany
- · Cold War division and the divergent trajectories of Eastern and Western Europe
- · Economic transformation, the welfare state, and the postwar boom
- · Memory, forgetting, and how European nations constructed official narratives of the war
- · The collapse of communism and the reopening of suppressed histories
Common praise
- + Historians on r/AskHistorians cite specific chapters when they need sourced data on postwar German public opinion — the book holds up under that scrutiny.
- + The section on denazification supplies the kind of granular timeline (originating at the Pentagon before the war ended) that general histories skip.
- + Judt treats Eastern and Western Europe as a single story rather than two parallel ones, which makes the asymmetries visible.
- + At ↑100 upvotes, a comment citing Postwar's German polling data from 1946–1949 became the anchor of its thread — that's the signal that a source earns trust in that sub.
Common criticism
- − At 19 mentions across seven years, all in one subreddit, the book has not crossed into general reading communities — it stays firmly in the specialist lane.
- − Nothing in the data shows r/AskHistorians contesting Judt's interpretations — he gets cited rather than debated, which may mean the sub treats him as settled consensus rather than engaging him critically.
Who it's for
If you're writing a long r/AskHistorians response and need a reliable source on anything from German denazification to Eastern European car ownership under socialism, this is the book you cite. Graduate students working on 20th-century European history will encounter it as a required text regardless of specialization. Readers who finished Ian Kershaw's Hitler biography and want the broader postwar frame will find Judt picks up exactly where the war ends. The 900 pages are not a problem for this audience — they're the point.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“If we are thinking about this question considering contemporary challenges with political radicalism, we must start by mentioning that the Allied Control Council, was deradicalizing a country that had been completely defeated and occupied. The catastrophe that national socialism brought on Germany s…
“The neat thing is they didn't! Or rather, they made the decision simply not to talk about it. Time and silence was the primary tool. For 13 years, almost … party. And many had joined before the Nazis actually took power. >On May 8th, 1945...there were 8 million Nazis in Germany. In Bonn, 102 out of …
“Right, so it’s important to begin with an understanding of what brought those regions wealth and influence to begin with, as a necessary precursor to talking … not found when Europe was industrializing. See also: Robert Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth Thomas Childers, Europe and Western…
“Certainly. Here's a claim in bold, and one or more sources that back it up. **Most Germans after the war were still in favor of Nazism** *Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945* by Tony Judt In particular, between 1946 and 1949, a majority of Germans openly answered that Nazism had been a go…
“**Sources** WE Bomberger and GA Makinen. ‘The Hungarian hyperinflation and stabilization of 1946-46.’ *Journal of Political Economy 91* (1983). William Coupe. *The German Illustrated Broadsheet in the Seventeenth Century: Historical and Iconographical Studies*. Baden-Baden: Heitz, 1966. Markus De…
“In "Postwar", Judt (talking about Europe) pointed out that states that didn't have successful big reconstruction programmes, had less faith in government, than ones that saw their countries rebuilt. I found this compelling, and explains some of the USA's attitude to its patchwork health system.
“You have to understand that history is often western-centric, especially in academia in the West. The West were closer with one another, and the fall of France was viewed much more sympathetically to the fall of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with France's resistance being viewed as the symbolification …
“I will be using an endnote format, so to find the corresponding source below search for its number and the source will be there. So, to begin we have to get an idea of early De-nazification. The official beginnings of the term denazification originated at the pentagon prior to the end of ww2 in 194…
“I think it would be needed to discuss a couple of more things. For example how were cars used? In the sense of who did they belong to? For plenty of mentioned countries it was often a utility that was owned by a company or association and - compared to West Germany (FRG) - relatively less often a f…
“It was a process that started pretty much immediately after the war ended, and some argue that it still continues on today. Before the war, Hitler and the Nazi party gained massive popularity by exploiting many issues and sentiments that the German public was facing. Economic, the loss of the great…
“**Part II** OK, on to the 60s! Just to separate out Europe for a moment, the idea of poverty in America was a very big question in the decade of the 1960s. On the one hand, American households in general had [access](
“NAH. The post-World War II landscape of travel and reconciliation was complex, marked by layers of trauma, silence, and gradual societal healing. Contrary to what one might expect, many former Nazi soldiers and collaborators did indeed move about relatively freely in the countries they had previous…
“Jews across Europe did not simply “choose” to leave after 1945 because of a single factor. Centuries of legal discrimination, periodic expulsions and violence … colonizers by so many today, they were in many senses refugees in the truest sense; fleeing persecution, destruction of property and the th…
“My answer focuses on Jewish survivors, as I wrote my M.A. history thesis on Jewish refugees in postwar Germany. Although the destruction of the war and the adjustments of occupation made the immediate postwar years difficult across the continent, life for Jews in postwar Europe was especially precar…
“**Conclusion**: Korea's divisions were wider than simply who the Americans supported and who the Soviets supported. When a country is under colonial control … joint commissions, through the UN and otherwise, convened several times in an attempt to continue the broad wartime plan of holding unified e…
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Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — frequently asked
What does Reddit actually use Postwar by Tony Judt for?+
Almost exclusively as a citation source. All 19 Reddit mentions are in r/AskHistorians, where it gets pulled for specific data: German public opinion polls from 1946–1949, the timeline of Allied denazification policy, economic statistics on the postwar boom. The ↑467 thread on deradicalization and the ↑100 thread on Nazi-era attitudes both lean on Judt for sourced claims. It functions as a scholarly reference, not a recommendation.
Is Postwar worth reading if I'm not a historian?+
Depends on tolerance for density. The Reddit evidence is all from r/AskHistorians — no crossover into general reading subs, self-improvement communities, or book clubs. That's not a knock on the book; it reflects what the book is. If you want the history of postwar Europe as a subject rather than as a backdrop, yes. If you're looking for a narrative read in the Kershaw or Hastings vein, the 900-page scope will feel more like a reference work than a story.
How does Postwar handle Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe?+
The Reddit data doesn't surface direct debates about this, but the threads that cite Judt treat Eastern and Western Europe as part of the same analytical frame — the ↑40 comment on Western-centric historiography actually gestures toward exactly this problem, noting how French resistance got more academic attention than Yugoslavia's. Judt's reputation rests partly on refusing that asymmetry. The citations in r/AskHistorians span both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Is Postwar the right starting point for someone new to 20th-century European history?+
Probably not first. The Reddit pattern suggests it works best as a second or third book — something you reach for after you have the basic chronology and want the interpretive layer. It earns citations from historians who already know the period. Starting here without that scaffolding risks the 900 pages feeling like a wall of names and dates rather than an argument.