Savage Continent, Keith Lowe
Savage Continent, Keith Lowe
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Savage Continent
Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

Author: Keith Lowe

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 15 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/24/2012


Synopsis

The Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years...

The end of the Second World War in Europe is one of the twentieth century's most iconic moments. It is fondly remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, danced, drank and made love until the small hours. These images of victory and celebration are so strong in our minds that the period of anarchy and civil war that followed has been forgotten.  Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed and more than thirty million people had been killed in the war. The institutions that we now take for granted—such as the police, the media, transport, local and national government—were either entirely absent or hopelessly compromised. Crime rates were soaring, economies collapsing, and the European population was hovering on the brink of starvation. 

In Savage Continent, Keith Lowe describes a continent still racked by violence, where large sections of the population had yet to accept that the war was over.  Individuals, communities and sometimes whole nations sought vengeance for the wrongs that had been done to them during the war. Germans and collaborators everywhere were rounded up, tormented and summarily executed. Concentration camps were reopened and filled with new victims who were tortured and starved.  Violent anti-Semitism was reborn, sparking murders and new pogroms across Europe.  Massacres were an integral part of the chaos and in some places—particularly Greece, Yugoslavia and Poland, as well as parts of Italy and France—they led to brutal civil wars. In some of the greatest acts of ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen, tens of millions were expelled from their ancestral homelands, often with the implicit blessing of the Allied authorities. Savage Continent is the story of post WWII Europe, in all its ugly detail, from the end of the war right up until the establishment of an uneasy stability across Europe toward the end of the 1940s. Based principally on primary sources from a dozen countries, Savage Continent is a frightening and thrilling chronicle of a world gone mad, the standard history of post WWII Europe for years to come.


About Keith Lowe

Keith Lowe is the author of the critically-acclaimed Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg 1943, and Savage Continent, an international bestseller and the winner of both the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History (2013) and Italy's prestigious Cherasco History Prize (2015). He lectures on both sides of the Atlantic, appears on TV and radio in Europe and the US, and writes for a variety of magazines and newspapers around the world. He lives in north London with his wife and children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Anastasia on June 12, 2012

A Tale Unfolds Keith Lowe’s Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II is an important book. Yes, yes, I know; you’ve heard it all before, the special pleading on behalf of some new publication or other, but believe me, it is. Actually, no, don’t believe me; don’t take my word for it......more

Goodreads review by Paul on June 29, 2013

This is the third in my series of great books on World War Two. First, Max Hastings in All Hell Let Loose gives the whole story, and brilliantly simplifies it too. He explains, and I’m convinced, that WW2 was essentially between Germany and the USSR, or between Hitler and Stalin if you wish. Everyth......more

Goodreads review by Jakob on November 21, 2012

This book is a revelation, as other reviewers have pointed out, for those of us whose view of history was that WWII led to the Cold War, and events in between didn't matter much because we knew what happened in the end. I at least learned that I knew nothing. Ignoring the forced cultural shifts and......more

Goodreads review by Mieczyslaw on July 26, 2013

I found this a very difficult book to read, not because it was "harrowing" as some reviewers have described it - for me there was nothing new here, just lots of facts and information that filled out the bones a little more. I found this book difficult because it is so dry. I believe this book is rea......more