This book analyses the process of 'reshaping' liberated societies in post-1945 Europe. Post-war societies tried to solve three main questions immediately after the dark times of occupation: Who could be considered a patriot and a valuable member of the respective national community? How could relations between men and women be (re-)established? How could the respective society strengthen national cohesion? Violence in rather different forms appeared to be a powerful tool for such a complex reshaping of societies. The chapters are based on present primary research about specific cases and consider the different political, mental, and cultural developments in various nation-states between 1944 and 1948. Examples from Italy, France, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary demonstrate a new comparative and fascinating picture of post-war Europe. This perspective overcomes the notorious East-West dividing line, without covering the manifold differences between individual European countries.

This book analyses the process of 'reshaping' liberated societies in post-1945 Europe. Post-war societies tried to solve three main questions immediately after the dark times of occupation: Who could be considered a patriot and a valuable member of the respective national community? How could relations between men and women be (re-)established? How could the respective society strengthen national cohesion? Violence in rather different forms appeared to be a powerful tool for such a complex reshaping of societies. The chapters are based on present primary research about specific cases and consider the different political, mental, and cultural developments in various nation-states between 1944 and 1948. Examples from Italy, France, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary demonstrate a new comparative and fascinating picture of post-war Europe. This perspective overcomes the notorious East-West dividing line, without covering the manifold differences between individual European countries.

The civilizing mission associated with nineteenth-century colonialism became harder to justify after the First World War. In an increasingly anti-imperialist culture, elites reformulated schemes for the "improvement" of "inferior" societies. Nation building, social engineering, humanitarianism, modernization or the spread of democracy were used to justify outside interventions and the top-down transformation of non-western, international or even domestic societies. The contributions in Civilizing Missions in the Twentieth Century discuss how these justifications influenced Polish nation building, Scandinavian disarmament proposals and technocratic social policies in the interwar years. Treatment of the second half of the century covers the changing cultural context of European humanitarianism, as well as the influence of American social science on US foreign policy, more particularly democracy promotion. Contributors are: Boris Barth, Rolf Hobson, Jurgen Osterhammel, Frank Ninkovich, Bianka Pietrow-Ennker, Karen Gram-Skjoldager, Esther Moeller, and Jost Dulffer.