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The cover of Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

Keith Lowe

What happened across Europe in the years right after the war ended, when peace had not yet brought order or safety?

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At a glance

Author
Keith Lowe

Why read it

  • You will see that the end of a war is not the end of its violence, as revenge and expulsions follow the peace
  • You will understand how law, trade and trust collapse when institutions vanish, and how quickly people turn to survival
  • You will learn how hatred and revenge become natural after great suffering, so you can spot the same pattern today

Who it is for

  • Readers who think of the war's end as a clean ending
  • People following today's wars who ask how peace is built
  • Students of European history wanting what textbooks skip

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. PART I - The Legacy of War
  3. 1 - Physical Destruction
  4. Death Toll
  5. The Vanishing of the Jews
  6. Other Holocausts
  7. Widows and Orphans
  8. 3 - Displacement
  9. 4 - Famine
  10. Looting and Theft
  11. The Black Market
  12. Violence
  13. Rape
  14. Morality and Children
  15. The Cult of Heroism
  16. Brotherhood and Unity
  17. A Brave New World
  18. 7 - Landscape of Chaos
  19. PART II - Vengeance
  20. 8 - The Thirst for Blood
  21. Discovery
  22. The Revenge of Jewish Prisoners
  23. Revenge of Slave Labourers
  24. The Military Control of DPs
  25. The ‘Liberation Complex’
  26. Relief and Rehabilitation
  27. The Issue of Personal Power
  28. American-held Prisoners of War
  29. Soviet-held Prisoners of War
  30. The Cost of Bad History
  31. Germans in Czechoslovakia
  32. The New ‘Extermination Camps’
  33. The Politics of Numbers
  34. The Italian Epurazzione
  35. The Failure of the Purge Across Europe
  36. The Construction of Convenient Myths
  37. The Shearing of Women
  38. The Ostracism of Children
  39. 15 - The Purpose of Vengeance
  40. PART III - Ethnic Cleansing
  41. 16 - Wartime Choices
  42. The Choice to Return Home
  43. The Return: Holland
  44. The Fight over Jewish Property
  45. Jews as Capitalists, Jews as Communists
  46. The Kielce Pogrom
  47. The Flight
  48. The Origins of Polish/Ukrainian Ethnic Violence
  49. The Soviet Solution
  50. Forced ‘Repatriation’
  51. Forced Assimilation
  52. The Human Reality of the Expulsions
  53. ‘Home’ to the Reich
  54. Total Expulsion
  55. A Cleansed Landscape
  56. Historical Background
  57. The ‘Bleiburg Tragedy’
  58. Yugoslavia as a Symbol of Pan-European Violence
  59. 21 - Western Tolerance, Eastern Intolerance
  60. PART IV - Civil War

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