Year zero : a history of 1945
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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 the 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 in much of Asia including China, Korea, Indochina, the Philippines, 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.