“Europe as a way of life”

Judt in his book “Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945” beautifully describes Europe’s struggle to recovery from the events of the beginning of the 20th century. Judt points out multiple ways that Europe began the road to stabilization. I think that his idea that Europe had to look to itself for the first time was very interesting. Throughout history Europe has been the hegemonic power in the international stage. It never really had to worry about its domestic issues, but more about states outside Europe. Judt points out that in order for Europe to recover after World War One and Two it had to join together and rebuild a foundation without its past. No longer did Europe have goals of conquering other nations or building stronger economies, but it had to work on rebuilding itself.

I thought it was important to recognize that in the past Europe was not always viewed as Europe, but rather as different state powers with different ideals and types of leadership. However after the wars, Europe had no option but to begin its model after the United States, literally a “united Europe”. I thought it was quite important how Judt pointed out that in order for Europe to survive it not only had to unite, but that each country within Europe had to develop of sense of allegiance to that state without losing its primary allegiance to Europe. This is very reminiscent of the U.S. Moreover, Judt points out that the only way of uniting and fixing Europe was to keep silent about much of its past. I think this is unfortunate but true in the sense that if European nations looked at how Germany killed their economies during World War Two, they would not have wanted to unite with Germany, therefore ruining the idea of “Europe as a way of life”.