In 1945, Europe lay in ruins, ravaged by war, bombings, and mass slaughter. Extensive areas of Eastern Europe fell under Soviet control, replacing the old despotism with a new one. Today, the Soviet Union no longer exists, and the democracies of the European Union stretch to the borders of Russia.

Tony Judt narrates this complex history with clarity and density, as it unfolds under the constant shadow of the war itself: the reconstruction of Europe from the ruins, the divergent experiences of Eastern and Western Europe, the decline and fall of the Soviet regime, and the rise of the EEC and the EU, the end of the European empires, and the changing relationships of Europe with the two great powers that surround it, Russia and America.

Amid these broad outlines, specific political events, phenomena, and figures emerge: Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal alongside Franco's Spain and Ceaușescu's Romania, the civil war in Greece, the struggles in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country, May '68 in Paris and the events in Italy and Prague, the tensions between the linguistic communities of Belgium, social democracy in the Scandinavian countries, the roles of Churchill, Stalin, Franco, Mitterrand, Jaruzelski, Berlusconi, and many others.

A mosaic also forms from economic, social, and cultural stories, such as the development of the German automotive industry, the arrival of the refrigerator, and the spread of consumerism, migration and the gastarbeiter, existentialism and the decline of the public intellectual, French and Czech cinema, beatlemania and punk rock...

From the aftermath of World War II to the war in Iraq, the book shines a light on the recent history and multifaceted identity of Europe in the perspective of the 21st century.