Final Book Review Project, Postwar by Tony Judt
Approaching the historic context of Europe since 1945 is generally not an easy task, but in the case of Tony Judt’s 2005 book, Postwar, he provides a strong interpretation of all the occurrences in this time period. Throughout his book, Judt is very efficient in tackling all of the issues that were important during these years, which would make Postwar a book that in general, can very effectively speak to the present generation of Europeans. The three issues that in the class I found more interesting and culturally important for modern day Europeans are: family/gay rights, unification of the European economy, and lastly the issues with immigration. I will use Judt’s book as evidence on how they …show more content…
This snake system only lasted a couple of years, until it was proposed to create the European Monetary System (EMS). “It would set up a grid of fixed bilateral exchange rates, linked by a single unit of measure, the European Currnecy Unit (the écu5) , this was the first actual step into becoming a more united Europe economically. After the EMS and écu were not as successful as successful as hoped, based on their lack of universality, “the next logical step was the replacement of national currencies by the euro, for all its disruptive symbolic implications” . This for Tony Judt is the idea that the creation of the euro was not a calculated strategic move on the road to a more successful economy, but rather it was the outcome of pragmatic responses to the European economic problems. Some countries, as Judt points out, were dubious about joining a system such as the Euro, an example hat we are given is how some nations, such as Sweden “were transformed from an independent nation to a sort of province within an expanding superpower, therefore becoming simply little more than an advisory panel” . Some countries also found it necessary to join the European Union, since it was the best way to modernize their economies and stabilize domestic …show more content…
“Its income derives from fixed rates of customs, duty, agricultural levies, a Union-wide indirect sales tax (VAT) and contributions of memer-states capped at just 1.24 percent of Gross National Income (GNI)” . Consequently, a very small portion of the European Union’s income was under control of the union itself. Therefore, Judt claims that the problem with a common currency such as the Euro, “lays in the prerequisite harmonization of national economic policies” , which considers free riders a big risk. By the 21st century, the European Union was the world’s largest internal single market. At this point it was not the individual countries anymore that made rules “governing exchange, employment and constituting markets” , it was not the European Union that made those rules, and worked as a monopoly. Consequently, the only economic activity that the national entities had a final say in, were taxation
Approaching the historic context of Europe since 1945 is generally not an easy task, but in the case of Tony Judt’s 2005 book, Postwar, he provides a strong interpretation of all the occurrences in this time period. Throughout his book, Judt is very efficient in tackling all of the issues that were important during these years, which would make Postwar a book that in general, can very effectively speak to the present generation of Europeans. The three issues that in the class I found more interesting and culturally important for modern day Europeans are: family/gay rights, unification of the European economy, and lastly the issues with immigration. I will use Judt’s book as evidence on how they …show more content…
This snake system only lasted a couple of years, until it was proposed to create the European Monetary System (EMS). “It would set up a grid of fixed bilateral exchange rates, linked by a single unit of measure, the European Currnecy Unit (the écu5) , this was the first actual step into becoming a more united Europe economically. After the EMS and écu were not as successful as successful as hoped, based on their lack of universality, “the next logical step was the replacement of national currencies by the euro, for all its disruptive symbolic implications” . This for Tony Judt is the idea that the creation of the euro was not a calculated strategic move on the road to a more successful economy, but rather it was the outcome of pragmatic responses to the European economic problems. Some countries, as Judt points out, were dubious about joining a system such as the Euro, an example hat we are given is how some nations, such as Sweden “were transformed from an independent nation to a sort of province within an expanding superpower, therefore becoming simply little more than an advisory panel” . Some countries also found it necessary to join the European Union, since it was the best way to modernize their economies and stabilize domestic …show more content…
“Its income derives from fixed rates of customs, duty, agricultural levies, a Union-wide indirect sales tax (VAT) and contributions of memer-states capped at just 1.24 percent of Gross National Income (GNI)” . Consequently, a very small portion of the European Union’s income was under control of the union itself. Therefore, Judt claims that the problem with a common currency such as the Euro, “lays in the prerequisite harmonization of national economic policies” , which considers free riders a big risk. By the 21st century, the European Union was the world’s largest internal single market. At this point it was not the individual countries anymore that made rules “governing exchange, employment and constituting markets” , it was not the European Union that made those rules, and worked as a monopoly. Consequently, the only economic activity that the national entities had a final say in, were taxation