Changing Trends in the Historiography of Postwar Europe, East and West

Abstract

This essay explores changing trends in the post-1989 historiography of both eastern and western postwar Europe. It suggests that one major development is a shift toward themes in social and cultural history that see the late 1940s in the context of wartime experience. Another is the wresting of issues such as the imposition of communist power in eastern Europe from political science by historians. Shortcomings visible in these new trends include a tendency to divorce the history of representations and images from older concerns with power and the state. On the whole, however, common issues are emerging in the historiography of the two-halves of the continent that make it easier to envisage a more unified approach to their joint postwar history.