The Transformative Impact of World War II

Read this article about how World War II changed Europe. These changes reached far into the future, and some affect the world order even today.

Notes

  1. Treaties were later concluded with Italy and other states which had fought alongside the Axis powers.
  2. See Howard, Thirty Years War 1986. I discuss the concept in Purdue, Second World War 2011, pp.12–16.
  3. Tooze, in The Deluge 2014, makes the case for a fundamental disconnection between the two wars.
  4. Bessel, Germany 2009.
  5. Hitchcock, Liberation 2008, p. 372.
  6. Laqueur, Europe 1982, p. 9.
  7. Mayne, Recovery 1970, p. 24.
  8. Bell, World 2001, p. 36.
  9. Ferguson, Empire 2003, p. 356.
  10. The rickety Portuguese Empire survived longer, losing its major African colonies in 1975.
  11. Mazower, Dark Continent 1998, p. 383.
  12. Bessel, Germany, 2009.
  13. Hitchcock, Liberation, 2008.
  14. Mazower, Dark Continent 1998, p. 230.
  15. See, for instance, Swain and Swain, Eastern Europe 1993.
  16. Quoted in Rupnik, Other Europe 1988, p. 72.
  17. Kettenacker, Germany 1997, p. 217.
  18. See Abse, Italy 1992, p. 107.
  19. Roseman, World War II 2001, pp. 238–254.
  20. See Overy, Road to War 1989.
  21. The original statement made by Douglas Jay in The Socialist Case (1937) was "the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves", but it was simplified by opponents of the 1945–51 Labour government.
  22. Lowe, State and Social Welfare 1997, p. 63.
  23. Roseman, World War II 2001, p. 247.
  24. "Nivellierte Mittelstandsgesellschaft", a phrase coined by the German sociologist Helmut Schelsky in 1953.
  25. Kedward, Vie en bleu 2006, p. 269.
  26. A phrase coined by Jürgen Habermas which is discussed in Buruma, Wages 1995, pp. 185–6.
  27. Sheehan, Monopoly 2007, ch. 8.
  28. See Kettenacker, 1997, on Germany, pp 213–235.
  29. Arthur Marwick's view of the effects of war on society was first put forward in a study of the First World War in The Deluge (1965) and he developed it with respect to both world wars in War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century (1974).
  30. For example, see for the impact of the war on Britain, Calder, People's War 1971.
  31. Bedarida, World War II 1988, pp. 89–90.
  32. Priestley, English Journey 1984, p. 375.
  33. Chapman, Film and Radio 2006, p. 194.
  34. Kedward, Vie en bleu 2006, p. 413.
  35. De Grazia, Irresistible Empire, 2005.