Review: Miscellaneous: The Struggle for Europe
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200305800214 |
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| Author | Margare Millan |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
There
are always
questions,
of
course,
about
how
well
a
small
num-
ber
of
case
studies
can
travel,
but
Ripsman
is
sensitive
to
them
and
is
careful
not
to
claim
too much.
What
he
does claim
is
considerable
enough,
and
he
delivers
in
style.
David
A.
Welch/University
of
Toronto
THE
STRUGGLE
FOR
EUROPE
The
history
of
a
divided
continent
1945-2002
William
I. Hitchcock
London:
Profile
Books
2003,
xv,
513pp, £25.00,
ISBN
1-86197233-4
There
are
many
ways
to
write
the
history
of
Europe
since
1945.
The
once-great
continent
caught
between
the
two superpowers
and
their
cold
war;
the
more
cheerful
view
of
a
Europe moving
gradually
but
inevitably
towards
the supranational
triumph
of
the
European
Union.
Alternatively
there
is
Europe
as
a
collection
of
national
histories:
the
German
miracle,
the
gentle
British
recession
from
power;
the
not
so-
gentle French
attempt
to
hang
on
to
Great
Power
status,
and
of
course
the
misery
of
the
east
European countries
caught
in
the
meshes
of
the
iron
curtain.
Still
another
way
is
what
historians
like
Mark
Mazower
have
done
and
that
is
to
see
Europe
-
east
and
west
-
as
a
whole,
with
similar
social
transformations.
All
historians,
though,
have
to
deal
with the
same
awkward
issues:
Russia
-
part
of
Europe
or
not?
the
United
Kingdom
-
the
same
ques-
tion; the
Balkans
and
their
recent
horrors
-
an
aberration
or
a
symp-
tom
of
the
old
unregenerate
ethnic
hatreds
still
lying everywhere
under
the
surface
of
the
continent?
And
what
about
the
United
States?
sav-
iour
of
Western
Europe
from
the
communist
threat
or
a
threat
in
its
own
right
to
Europe's
independence.
William
Hitchcock,
an American
historian,
has
tried
to
strike
a
bal-
ance
among
these
different
approaches
and
different
issues.
The
result
is
a
good,
clear
history
of
Europe
since
the
end
ofWorld
War
II. It
does-
n't
do
everything.
It
doesn't
have
much
to
say
about
the
Soviet
Union.
Its
treatment
of
social
change,
in
attitudes
to women for
example,
is
cursory.
Its
great
strength
is
to
remind
us
of
just
how
far
Europe
has
come
and
to
explain
why.
In
1945,
with
its
cities
and
towns
in ruins,
many
of
its
people
starving, Europe
appeared finished.
Who
could
have
imagined
then
that
60
years
later,
Europe,
as
Hitchcock
puts it,
is
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Spring2003
425
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