Professor Brophy
History 102


Europe in the Post-war World

I Introduction
-WWII and the end of
 the European era
-the Holocaust and its
implication for western
civilization
-the new balance of
 world power

II. The Cold War
-the Soviet fait accompli in Eastern Europe
-the Greek civil war and the Truman Doctrine (1947)
-the Marshall Plan (1947)
-the Berlin Blockade (1948-49)
-Soviet nuclear power in 1949
-global implications of cold war

III. Western Europe after 1945
-lessons learned?
-international and economic cooperation
    Eur. Coal and Steel Community (1952)
    North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1955)
    European Economic Community (1957)
-the postwar welfare state
-social market economy

IV.  The Unfinished Picture
-Gorbachev’s Glasnost (1985); from reform to revolution
-the East European revolutions of 1989: rights-bearing citizenship and its mark on cold war
-unification of Germany and Europe
-Treaty on European Union, Maastricht 1992: creation of European internal market and single currency (Euro)
-positive economic and cultural features of new unified European continent

V. The Unfinished Picture Cont’d
-ethnic nationalism, xenophobia, ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and civil war in post-wall Europe
-postindustrial unemployment; jobless prosperity
-crisis of the welfare state and its survival
-exploitation in the global economy
-environmental issues; Chernobyl nuclear disaster, 1986

Conclusions
-the contemporary presence of history
-modernity, European history, and the contemporary world
-western civilization in its present day context; political fronts and futures
-history and social knowledge—is there a future without the past?