Year Zero: A History of 1945
Author(s): Ian Buruma
"A marvelous global history of the pivotal year 1945 as a new world emerged from the ruins of World War II" "Year Zero "is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale: across Asia (including China, Korea, Indochina, and the Philippines, and of course Japan) and all of continental Europe. Out of the often vicious power struggles that ensued emerged the modern world as we know it. In human terms, the scale of transformation is almost impossible to imagine. Great cities around the world lay in ruins, their populations decimated, displaced, starving. Harsh revenge was meted out on a wide scale, and the ground was laid for much horror to come. At the same time, in the wake of unspeakable loss, the euphoria of the liberated was extraordinary, and the revelry unprecedented. The postwar years gave rise to the European welfare state, the United Nations, decolonization, Japanese pacifism, and the European Union. Social, cultural, and political "reeducation" was imposed on vanquished by victors on a scale that also had no historical precedent. Much that was done was ill advised, but in hindsight, as Ian Buruma shows us, these efforts were in fact relatively enlightened, humane, and effective. A poignant grace note throughout this history is Buruma's own father's story. Seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Holland, he spent much of the war in Berlin as a laborer, and by war's end was literally hiding in the rubble of a flattened city, having barely managed to survive starvation rations, Allied bombing, and Soviet shock troops when the end came. His journey home and attempted reentry into "normalcy" stand in many ways for his generation's experience. A work of enormous range and stirring human drama, conjuring both the Asian and European theaters with equal fluency, " Year Zero" is a book that Ian Buruma is perhaps uniquely positioned to write. It is surely his masterpiece.
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Charles Simic, "The New York Review of Books" ""Year Zero."..covers a great deal of history without minimizing the complexity of the events and the issues. It is well written and researched, full of little-known facts and incisive political analysis. What makes it unique among hundreds of other works written about this period is that it gives an overview of the effects of the war and liberation, not only in Europe, but also in Asia... A stirring account of the year in which the world woke up to the horror of what had just occurred and--while some new horrors were being committed--began to reflect on how to make sure that it never happens again." Adam Hochschild, "The New York Times Book Review" "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 (his Dutch father was a forced laborer in Berlin) and his understanding of this period from a book he wrote two decades ago that is still worth reading, "The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan."" "Wall Street Journal" "[Buruma is] one of those rare historian-humanists who bridge East and West...Year Zero has a down-to-earth grandeur. Through an array of brief, evocative human portraits and poignant descriptions of events around the globe he hints, rather than going into numbing detail or philosophical discourse, at the dimensions of suffering, the depth of moral confusion and in the end the nascent hope that 1945 entailed...Year Zero is a remarkable book, not because it breaks new ground, but in its combination of magnificence and modesty." "The Economist" "[Buruma] displays a fine grasp of the war's scope and aftermath. Little conventional wisdom survives Mr. Buruma's astringent prose. Perhaps his most important insight is that the war w
Ian Buruma is the Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College. His previous books include "The China Lover, Murder in Amsterdam, Occidentalism, God's Dust, Behind the Mask, The Wages of Guilt, Bad Elements," and "Taming the Gods."
General Fields
- :
- : Penguin Press
- : Penguin Press
- : 0.658
- : 01 September 2013
- : 242mm X 164mm X 33mm
- : United States
- : books
Special Fields
- : Ian Buruma
- : Hardback
- : 940.5314
- : 368
- : black & white illustrations