Year Zero

A History of 1945

By: Ian Buruma

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come across Asia and all of continental Europe. It was the greatest global power vacuum in history, and out of the often vicious power struggles that ensued emerged the modern world as we know it.

In human terms, the scale of transformation is almost impossible to imagine. Great cities around the world lay in ruins, their populations decimated, displaced, starving. Harsh revenge was meted out on a wide scale, and the ground was laid for much darkness to come. At the same time, in the wake of unspeakable loss, the euphoria of the liberated wasextraordinary, the revelry unprecedented. The postwar years gave rise to the Europeanwelfare state, the United Nations, American democracy, Japanese pacifism, and the European Union. Society-wide reeducation was imposed on the vanquished on a scale that had no historical precedent. Much that was done was ill-advised, but in hindsight these efforts were relatively enlightened, humane, and effective.

A poignant grace note throughout his history is Buruma's own father's story. Seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Holland, he spent much of the war in Berlin as a slave laborer and by war's end was literallyhiding in the rubble of a flattened city, having barely managed to survive starvation rations, Allied bombing, and Soviet shock troops when the end came. His journey home and attempted reentry into "normalcy" stand in, in many ways, for his generation's experience.

A work of enormous range and stirring human drama, conjuring both the Asian and European theaters with equal fluency, Year Zero is a book that Ian Buruma is perhaps uniquely positioned to write.

©2013 Ian Buruma; 2013 Blackstone Audiobooks

Like a 45rpm record playing on 33rpm

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend the book - the information is very interesting and well presented.The audiobook presentation is starting to make my ears bleed!

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Gildart Jackson?

Anybody else - Mr. Jackson reads as if he's dictating to a stone cutter

The war after the war

Excellent description of what 1945 was like for those still alive in Europe and Asia after the end of World War II. I highly recommend it.

Memorable Book.

Any additional comments?

This book covers an under-reported area of the WWII era. I think it will help younger people realize why that pivotal time still shapes the world they inhabit today. World War II is no longer part of the collective memory of the majority. I was born in 1945 so even as a kid I heard the people in my life talking about it. But to younger people WWII seems as distant as the Civil War-- it is hard for them to relate to.

I have a large WWII library, yet Year Zero filled in a lot of blanks in my understanding of events. I only had some generalities on how awful things were after the "peace." Year Zero was very enlightening.

was really hard to get through

the story was hard to listen to. It was fine for the first few hours... but got very hard.

Great historical overview

If you're interested in WW II this is a great book to add to your reading list. Since it only deals with 1945 it helps the reader understand the results, compromises, and fallout from the Allied win. One can see the makings of world events that came as a result of decisions made at the end of the war. Narration is excellent.