Europe emerged from World War II shattered and divided, and historian Tony Judt traces its reconstruction into the prosperous, peaceful continent of the early twenty-first century. Postwar covers all thirty-four nations of Europe, east and west, through sixty years of political, economic, and cultural transformation. Judt, who grew up in London and taught at New York University before his death in 2010, brings linguistic command of six languages and an intimate knowledge of European intellectual life to a synthesis of staggering scope. The book examines how Western Europe built welfare states, integrated economies, and eventually reconciled with Germany, while Eastern Europe endured Soviet domination, attempted reforms, and finally broke free in 1989. Judt is particularly interested in how Europeans remembered and forgot the war, how collaboration was occluded, how the Holocaust moved from silence to centrality, and how national mythologies were constructed and revised. The prose is lucid and opinionated, reflecting Judt's social democratic sympathies while engaging seriously with views he opposes. He argues that Europe's postwar achievement was largely accidental, the product of American protection and exceptional circumstances that cannot be easily replicated. The final sections examine how the postwar settlement has frayed, as welfare states retreat, immigration creates tensions, and the memory of war fades. Readers seeking to understand how contemporary Europe emerged from twentieth-century catastrophe will find this book indispensable.