From the ashes of World War II to the conflict over Iraq, William Hitchcock examines the miraculous transformation of Europe from a deeply fractured land to a continent striving for stability, tolerance, democracy, and prosperity. Exploring the role of Cold War politics in Europe's peace settlement and the half century that followed, Hitchcock reveals how leaders such as Charles de Gaulle, Willy Brandt, and Margaret Thatcher balanced their nations' interests against the demands of the reigning superpowers, leading to great strides in economic and political unity. He re-creates Europeans' struggles with their troubling legacy of racial, ethnic, and national antagonism, and shows that while divisions persist, Europe stands on the threshold of changes that may profoundly shape the future of world affairs.

Introduction
Part One: Aftermath
1. German Midnight: The Division of Europe, 1945
2. Building Jerusalem: The Labour Government in Britain, 1945–1951
3. Democracy Embattled: France, Italy, and West Germany, 1944–1949
4. Behind the Iron Curtain: Communism in Power, 1945-1953
Part Two: Boom
5. The Miraculous Fifties
6. Winds of Change: The End of the European Empires
7. Hope Betrayed: The Khrushchev Years, 1953–1964
8. The Gaullist Temptation: Western Europe in the 1960s
Part Three: Rebels
9. Europe and Its Discontents: 1968 and After
10. Southern Renaissance: The Transition to Democracy in Spain, Portugal, and Greece
11. Cracks in the Wall: Eastern Europe, 1968-1981
12. Rule, Britannia: The Thatcher Era

Part Four: Unity?
13. The European Revolutions, 1989–1991
14. The Bones of Bosnia
15. Who Is European? Race, Immigration, and the Politics of Division
16. The Elusive European Union