FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER AWARD

A magisterial and acclaimed history of post-war Europe, from Germany to Poland, from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, selected as one ofNew York TimesTen Best Books of the Year

Europe in 1945 was drained. Much of the continent was devastated by war, mass slaughter, bombing and chaos. Large areas of Eastern Europe were falling under Soviet control, exchanging one despotism for another. Today, the Soviet Union is no more and the democracies of the European Union reach as far as the borders of Russia itself. Postwar tells the rich and complex story of how we got from there to here, demystifying Europe's recent history and identity, of what the continent is and has been.

It is hard to imagine how a better - and more readable - history of the emergence of today's Europe from the ashes of 1945 could ever be writtenAll in all, a real masterpiece Ian Kershaw, author ofHitler

Tony Judt was educated at King's College, Cambridge and the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Berkeley. He was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies at New York University; in addition to Director of the Remarque Institute, which is dedicated to the study of Europe and which he founded in 1995.

The author or editor of fourteen books, Professor Judt was a frequent contributor toThe New York Review of Books, theTimes Literary Supplement, theNew Republic, theNew York Timesand many other journals in Europe and the US. Professor Judt is the author ofIll Fares the Land,Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, andPostwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, which was one of theNew York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2005, the winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He died in August, 2010 at the age of sixty-two.