Economic Recovery in Western Europe

Abstract

In the decade following 1948, revolutionary economic changes laid the groundwork for what many observers termed the New Europe. By 1960 Europe had regained its place as the leading trading area in the world, with nearly one quarter of the world’s industrial output and 40 percent of the world’s trade.

To present the postwar growth as one of history’s unpremeditated happenings would be most unhistorical. For what distinguishes the postwar era from most other periods of economic history is not only its growth but the extent to which this growth was “contrived”: generated and sustained by governments and the public.

M. M. Postan, An Economic History of Western Europe, 1945–1964