The Atlantic Gap 
Neal Ascherson
As soon as you realise how good it is, this book will frighten you. This is not just a history. It is a highly intrusive biography, especially if, like me, you belong to the British generations who were children before and during the war. When we were learning to read, Europe was a dark word, an inaccessible ‘over there’ place of suffering and menace. But as we grew up and the war ended, so Europe changed into a shore which could be visited, a site for taking independent steps, accumulating our own experience, forming our early opinions. In other words, ‘postwar Europe’ is us. How will we look, in these pages?
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From the LRB letters page: [ 1 December 2005 ] Jim Harper.
Neal Ascherson’s books include The Struggles for Poland and Black Sea. He is an honorary lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Other articles by this contributor:
What Sort of Traitors? · the British Spy Opera
Law v. Order · Putin’s strategy
Oo, Oo! · Khrushchev the Stalinist
The Media Did It · Neal Ascherson remembers the Wall
Lust for Leaks · The Cockburns of Cork
Even Now · The Silence of Günter Grass
Gazillions · Organised Crime
Victory in Defeat · Trotsky
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