Keith Lowe

Recounts the disorder in Europe after World War II, describing the brutal acts against Germans and collaborators, the anti-Semitic beliefs that reemerged, and the Allied-tolerated expulsions of citizens from their ancestral homelands.

Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

Savage Continent

What Monuments to World War II Tell Us about Our History and Ourselves

Prisoners of History

Bestselling historian Keith Lowe's The Fear and the Freedom looks at the astonishing innovations that sprang from WWII and how they changed the world. The Fear and the Freedom is Keith Lowe’s follow-up to Savage Continent. While that book painted a picture of Europe in all its horror as WWII was ending, The Fear and the Freedom looks at all that has happened since, focusing on the changes that were brought about because of WWII—simultaneously one of the most catastrophic and most innovative events in history. It killed millions and eradicated empires, creating the idea of human rights, and giving birth to the UN. It was because of the war that penicillin was first mass-produced, computers were developed, and rockets first sent to the edge of space. The war created new philosophies, new ways of living, new architecture: this was the era of Le Corbusier, Simone de Beauvoir and Chairman Mao. But amidst the waves of revolution and idealism there were also fears of globalization, a dread of the atom bomb, and an unexpressed longing for a past forever gone. All of these things and more came about as direct consequences of the war and continue to affect the world that we live in today. The Fear and the Freedom is the first book to look at all of the changes brought about because of WWII. Based on research from five continents, Keith Lowe’s The Fear and the Freedom tells the very human story of how the war not only transformed our world but also changed the very way we think about ourselves.

How the Second World War Changed Us

The Fear and the Freedom

On the eve of his wedding, Andy makes a druken bet with his friend Rolf that he can travel aboard the Tube to every Underground Station within twenty-four hours, picking up his passport, credit card, keys, and honeymoon reservations along the way, before he can join his frustrated fiancTe Rachel aboard the Eurostar. Original.

Tunnel Vision

Keith Lowe's Savage Continent is an awe-inspiring portrait of how Europe emerged from the ashes of WWII. The end of the Second World War saw a terrible explosion of violence across Europe. Prisoners murdered jailers. Soldiers visited atrocities on civilians. Resistance fighters killed and pilloried collaborators. Ethnic cleansing, civil war, rape and murder were rife in the days, months and years after hostilities ended. Exploring a Europe consumed by vengeance, Savage Continent is a shocking portrait of an until-now unacknowledged time of lawlessness and terror. Praise for Savage Continent: 'Deeply harrowing, distinctly troubling. Moving, measured and provocative. A compelling and plausible picture of a continent physically and morally brutalized by slaughter' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'Excellent', Independent 'Unbearable but essential. A serious account of things we never knew and our fathers would rather forget. Lowe's transparent prose makes it difficult to look away from a whole catalogue of horrors...you won't sleep afterwards. Such good history it keeps all the questions boiling in your mind', Scotsman Keith Lowe is widely recognized as an authority on the Second World War, and has often spoken on TV and radio, both in Britain and the United States. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943 (Penguin). He lives in north London with his wife and two children.

The Second World War was one of the most catastrophic events in human history. But how did the experience and memory of bloodshed affect our relationships with each other and the world? The new order, as it emerged after 1945, saw the end of European empires and the birth of two new superpowers, whose wrangling would lead to a new, global Cold War. Scientists delivered new technologies, architects planned buildings to rise from the rubble, politicians fantasized about overhauled societies, people changed their nationalities and dreamed of new lives. As well as analyzing the major changes, The Fear and the Freedom uses the stores of how ordinary people coped with the post-war world and turned one of the greatest traumas in history into an opportunity for change. This is the definitive exploration of the aftermath of WWII - and the impact it still has today on our nations, cities and families.

A young brother and sister run into trouble when their meal comes to life and attacks! The children must call upon a legendary group of heroes to help them fend off the tasteless food, all while realizing the importance of teamwork. The Titans of Taste are a team of superheroes, made up of a diverse group of people. They are truly heroic friends, each in command of a powerful and delicious condiment. From the vegetable topping ranch dressing to the always reliable ketchup and mustard, every member of the Titans of Taste has a unique skill and important role to play. The food the Titans face is magnificent and larger than life. Hot dogs jump through windows, chicken nuggets march out of the oven, and pancakes flying through the sky on beautifully illustrated images canvasing each page. Don't stand alone when troubles will test you by the end of the read, the Titans help children understand that just like in life's most difficult circumstances, you need friends and family standing together against them.

The Titans of Taste

A look at how our monuments to World War II shape the way we think about the war by an award-winning historian. Keith Lowe, an award-winning author of books on WWII, saw monuments around the world taken down in political protest and began to wonder what monuments built to commemorate WWII say about us today. Focusing on these monuments, Prisoners of History looks at World War II and the way it still tangibly exists within our midst. He looks at all aspects of the war from the victors to the fallen, from the heroes to the villains, from the apocalypse to the rebuilding after devastation. He focuses on twenty-five monuments including The Motherland Calls in Russia, the US Marine Corps Memorial in the USA, Italy’s Shrine to the Fallen, China’s Nanjin Massacre Memorial, The A Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, the balcony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and The Liberation Route that runs from London to Berlin. Unsurprisingly, he finds that different countries view the war differently. In monuments erected in the US, Lowe sees triumph and patriotic dedications to the heroes. In Europe, the monuments are melancholy, ambiguous and more often than not dedicated to the victims. In these differing international views of the war, Lowe sees the stone and metal expressions of sentiments that imprison us today with their unchangeable opinions. Published on the 75th anniversary of the end of the war, Prisoners of History is a 21st century view of a 20th century war that still haunts us today.

What Monuments to World War II Tell Us About Our History and Ourselves

The Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years... The end of the Second World War in Europe is one of the twentieth century's most iconic moments. It is fondly remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, danced, drank and made love until the small hours. These images of victory and celebration are so strong in our minds that the period of anarchy and civil war that followed has been forgotten. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed and more than thirty million people had been killed in the war. The institutions that we now take for granted - such as the police, the media, transport, local and national government - were either entirely absent or hopelessly compromised. Crime rates were soaring, economies collapsing, and the European population was hovering on the brink of starvation. In Savage Continent, Keith Lowe describes a continent still racked by violence, where large sections of the population had yet to accept that the war was over. Individuals, communities and sometimes whole nations sought vengeance for the wrongs that had been done to them during the war. Germans and collaborators everywhere were rounded up, tormented and summarily executed. Concentration camps were reopened and filled with new victims who were tortured and starved. Violent anti-Semitism was reborn, sparking murders and new pogroms across Europe. Massacres were an integral part of the chaos and in some places – particularly Greece, Yugoslavia and Poland, as well as parts of Italy and France – they led to brutal civil wars. In some of the greatest acts of ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen, tens of millions were expelled from their ancestral homelands, often with the implicit blessing of the Allied authorities. Savage Continent is the story of post WWII Europe, in all its ugly detail, from the end of the war right up until the establishment of an uneasy stability across Europe towards the end of the 1940s. Based principally on primary sources from a dozen countries, Savage Continent is a frightening and thrilling chronicle of a world gone mad, the standard history of post WWII Europe for years to come.

De Tweede Wereldoorlog liet Europa achter in chaos. Landschappen waren vernietigd, steden met de grond gelijkgemaakt en meer dan 35 miljoen mensen gedood. De criminaliteit was onuitroeibaar en economieën stortten in. In zijn grensverleggende boek over de naoorlogse jaren brengt Keith Lowe niet alleen de verwrongen moraal in kaart, maar ook de enorme behoefte aan wraak als de nalatenschap van de oorlog. Hij beschrijft de etnische zuiveringen en burgeroorlogen die de levens van de mensen ontwrichtten, waarna uiteindelijk de instelling van een nieuwe wereldorde kwam, die het verwoeste continent stabiliteit bracht. Het woeste continent is de eerste grote geschiedenis van de korte, chaotische periode tussen het einde van de Tweede Wereldoorlog en het begin van de Koude Oorlog.

Europa in de nasleep van de Tweede Wereldoorlog

Het woeste continent

A Spectator Book of the Year 2020 A Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2020 A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year 2020 ‘Inspired ... Lowe’s sensitive, disturbing book should be compulsory reading for both statue builders and statue topplers’ MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES

Prisoners of History: What Monuments to the Second World War Tell Us About Our History and Ourselves

In the summer of 1943, British and American bombers launched an attack on the German city of Hamburg unlike anything the world had ever seen. For ten days they pounded the city with over 9,000 tons of bombs. The firestorm they created was visible for 200 miles, and pockets burned for a month. The people of Hamburg had no time to understand what had hit them. As they emerged from their cellars and shelters, they were confronted with a vision of hell: a sea of flame, the burned-out husks of fire engines, roads that had become flaming rivers of melted tarmac, and hurricane-force winds. Writer Lowe interviewed eyewitnesses and gathered together hundreds of documents. His book gives the human side of an inhuman story: the long, tense buildup to the Allied attack; the unparalleled horror of the firestorm itself; and the terrible aftermath.--From publisher description.

Inferno

Le statue adornano le piazze e i parchi delle nostre città, testimoni silenti della storia collettiva. Eppure quasi mai rimandano a una memoria condivisa, pacificata: l’interpretazione dei fatti si evolve, vecchie credenze vengono messe in discussione, il passato viene riscritto e le statue si ritrovano di colpo fuori dal tempo, anacronistiche pietre dello scandalo. Prigionieri della storia, i monumenti osservano immobili e impotenti il mondo cambiare. Ci sono tuttavia nella storia recente degli eventi che sembrano resistere ai marosi del tempo: la seconda guerra mondiale, con il suo intreccio di eroismo epico e nero abominio, fosca tragedia e improvviso riscatto, sembra ancora svolgersi in un racconto riconoscibile da tutti, vincitori e vinti. Ma è davvero così? Lo storico Keith Lowe sceglie di scandagliare l’eredità dell’ultimo grande conflitto del Novecento attraverso la memoria che i paesi hanno voluto fermare nella pietra: venticinque monumenti dedicati di volta in volta a eroi e martiri, alle vittime ma persino ai carnefici, senza dimenticare le opere che hanno voluto auspicare l’inizio di una sterminata pace tra i popoli. Questo viaggio lo porta per esempio ai piedi dei colossi del Mamaev Kurgan a Volgograd, a riflettere sulle vestigia dell’Unione Sovietica; ad Arlington, di fronte al Marine Corps War Memorial, a esplorare il rapporto fra gli Stati Uniti, la guerra e il concetto di libertà; a Nanchino, passeggiando attorno al memoriale dell’omonimo massacro e ripercorrendo la vicenda del conflitto sino-giapponese che aprì in anticipo il fronte orientale; a Predappio, sulla tomba di Mussolini, per esorcizzare i fantasmi di un passato che proietta la sua ombra fino a oggi; ma anche fra i blocchi del Memoriale dell’Olocausto di Berlino per scoprire le polemiche che ne hanno accompagnato l’edificazione. Il grande racconto storico di Lowe è in grado di compiere una metamorfosi. Quei monumenti, da pesanti conglomerati di pietra esposti alle intemperie, tornano a vibrare di potenza simbolica: «sotto il granito e il bronzo c’è l’amalgama di tutto ciò che ci rende quello che siamo – potere, gloria, coraggio, paura, oppressione, grandezza, speranza, amore e rovina. Celebriamo queste e mille altre virtù pensando che forse potranno liberarci dalla tirannia del passato. Eppure, proprio il desiderio di scolpirle nella pietra le rende inevitabilmente ciò che ci tiene, a nostra volta, prigionieri della storia». «Keith Lowe non ha paura di avventurarsi su un terreno scivoloso e fragile, e lo fa con la fermezza che deriva da una conoscenza granitica della materia.» - The Daily Mail «Questo libro delicato e inquietante dovrebbe essere una lettura obbligatoria sia per chi vuole costruire statue, sia per chi vuole abbatterle.» - The Sunday Times

Che cosa ci insegnano i monumenti della seconda guerra mondiale sulla memoria e su noi stessi

Prigionieri della storia

Draws on previously unseen official documents and eyewitness testimonies to document the bombing of Hamburg by U.S. and British forces during World War II, an event that cost 45,000 lives, set hurricane-force fires that lasted for a month, and rendered one million people homeless. 35,000 first printing.

Keith Lowe

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