Year Zero: A History of 1945 - Softcover

Buruma, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848879393 ISBN 13: 9781848879393

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2014

Synopsis

Many books have been written, and continue to be written, about the Second World War: military histories, histories of the Holocaust, the war in Asia, or collaboration and resistance in Europe. Few books have taken a close look at the immediate aftermath of the worldwide catastrophe.

Drawing on hundreds of eye-witness accounts and personal stories, this sweeping book examines the seven months (in Europe) and four months (in Asia) that followed the surrender of the Axis powers, from the fate of Holocaust survivors liberated from the concentration camps, and the formation of the state of Israel, to the incipient civil war in China, and the allied occupation of Japan.

It was a time when terrible revenge was taken on collaborators and their former masters; of ubiquitous black markets, war crime tribunals; and the servicing of millions of occupation troops, former foes in some places, liberators in others. But Year Zero is not just a story of vengeance. It was also a new beginning, of democratic restorations in Japan and West Germany, of social democracy in Britain and of a new world order under the United Nations.

If construction follows destruction, Year Zero describes that extraordinary moment in between, when people faced the wreckage, full of despair, as well as great hope. An old world had been destroyed; a new one was yet to be built.

About this title

Review:

Buruma's book is a study of the mess that the world was in 1945, a mess we choose largely not to remember. It is also a brief but valuable study of how that mess began to be cleaned up. It gives us, too, simple lessons, both touching and terrifying, about how human beings are and can be... Excellent and lucid -- David Aaronovitch, The Times

A superbly written chronicle of the conflict's bittersweet aftermath -- Ian Thomson, Observer

Sweeping... [The] book's most substantial merit is its grasp of the moral, social, and political confusions that pervaded every nation following the war... Buruma conveys a powerful sense of the horror and chaos of 1945 -- Max Hastings, Foreign Affairs

A graphic account - well-researched, splendidly constructed and stylishly written - of the hinge year of the twentieth century, of its horrors, hopes, illusions and roots of troubles to come. Altogether compelling - a fine achievement. -- Ian Kershaw

Moving and excellent -- Neal Ascherson, Guardian

Brilliant... Year Zero is a major acheivement, a book of many parts, which commemorates a generation, as they stood on the brink of an unknown future -- Joanna Kavenna, Spectator

Ian Buruma's elegant and humane new book illuminates one of the most important modern
historical moments... As generations with few memories of the second world war come of age in Europe and Asia, this luminous book will remind them of the importance of what Buruma terms "mental surgeons", the politicians and warriors who reconstructed two continents left in rubble.

-- Rana Mitter, Financial Times

Ian Buruma's wonderful book is about a time, immediately after the end of the war, which has somehow fallen between the cracks of history, and which the author has now devastatingly brought to light... A compelling and astounding addition to the literature of the war -- Christopher Hudson, Daily Mail

Buruma excels as a social historian of the aftermath of the war... It is hard to overstate Buruma's accomplishment in crafting the first truly worldwide account of perceptions and experiences in the pivotal years after the guns had fallen silent... Outstanding -- Samuel Moyn, Prospect

Ian Buruma's lively new history, Year Zero, is about the various ways in which the aftermath of the Good War turned out badly for many people, and splendidly for some who didn't deserve it. It is enriched by his knowledge of six languages, a sense of personal connection to the era and his understanding of this period -- Adam Hochschild, New York Times

From the Author:

Ian Buruma is Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College, in New York State. Murder in Amsterdam won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. He was awarded the Erasmus Prize in 2008.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1848879393
• ISBN 13: 9781848879393
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384