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.

British historian Taylor (The Berlin Wall) surveys the occupation policies of the Allied victors, showing a variegated picture: brutal in the Soviet zone, relatively humane in the American, British, and French sectors, but everywhere a landscape of hunger, cold, and--in German eyes--humiliation. Taylor also examines how the efforts to bring to account millions of ex-Nazi Party members were erratic, corrupt, and ineffective.