The End of Postwar: Essays on the Work of Ian Buruma

In the autumn of 2015 the Dutch-English publicist Ian Buruma gave

direction to the thinker’s programme “The End of Postwar’, organised by

the Flemish Royal Academy. The programme was triggered by Buruma’s

publication Year zero: a history of 1945, which focuses on the

coming into being of a new global order in the aftermath of World War

Two. The birth of a welfare state and the European unification process

were its two most remarkable achievements. Both, however, have been

under constant pressure since the beginning of the 21st century. Two

workshops and a two-day symposium brought together thinkers from the

scientific, cultural and political worlds in order to reflect on the

central theme of "The end of postwar: which future for Europe?‘. This

collection of essays reflects the debates, which dealt with issues such

as the re-invention of the welfare state, the breach of the postwar

consensus, the durability of humanism and the role of a United Europe as

an answer to history.