📖 Second-hand book "Post-War History of Europe 1953-1971" [90% new]

Volume content introduction:

Introduction to Volume 3 of Postwar European History: The Great Depression 1971-1989:

In the 1970s, the post-war economic boom in Europe faded. The United States unilaterally abolished the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the fixed exchange rate system of the US dollar that stabilized the world financial order was buried, and the exchange rates of European currencies floated. Inflation, currency depreciation, and a decline in economic growth rates followed, accompanied by widespread unemployment and social dissatisfaction among workers.

The political landscape in Western Europe began to split, and the overall pattern dominated by the left and the right was broken by "single-issue" parties and movements. Some social issues became the focus of public attention, and new political groups such as the feminist movement, environmental protection organizations and the peace movement used public opinion to transform social emotions into political actions.

By the end of the 1970s, European society began to realize the huge price paid for the success of its welfare state system. The privatization wave advocated by Mrs. Thatcher broke through the coast of Western Europe in the 1980s and swept across the entire continent in the following decade. The social democratic consensus in Europe for decades after the war was completely changed.

Eastern European socialist countries were stumbling, their economies were in recession, and people's livelihoods were in trouble. New opposition movements flourished in Prague and Warsaw, and dissidents chose to start from issues such as individual rights and civil liberties, ending the Soviet regime's monopoly on discourse. Through personal issues such as environmental pollution, intellectuals eliminated the indifference and fear of the public and gradually established a virtual public space.

In the late 1980s, under the leadership of Gorbachev, the Soviet Union gradually freed itself from supervision over Eastern European countries in order to save its own communism. Like a falling domino, Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia...European communist regimes collapsed in 1989.

The old order ended quickly, quietly, and peacefully, leaving a fragmented continent in its wake.

About the Author