The background to the Marshall Plan has been well examined from Western sources. Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan (1989), and from a German perspective Gerd Hardach, Der Marshall Plan (1994), are important. They need to be complemented by Alan S. Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945-51 (1984), and The European Rescue of the Nation-State (2000). W. Roger Louis, Imperialism at Bay (1978), covers the end of European empire, and cf. Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars (2007). John Gillingham, European Integration 1950-2003 (2003), builds on the author’s examination of Jean Monnet and his works. Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace (1978), is still useful on American reactions.
On the history of the Soviet Union generally, John Keep, A History of the Soviet Union 1945-1991 (2002), is useful, but see also Amy Knight, Beria (1993). William Taubman, Khrushchev (2003), David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb (1994), Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts (1996), Stéphane Courtois, Le Livre noir du communisme (1997), Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (1991), Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao (2006), and Jonathan Fenby, The Penguin History of Modern China (2009), have been my most important sources for the Communist world in the post-war period. Simon Leys, The Chairman’s New Clothes (1971, trans. 1977), is another wonderful book; also, when it appeared, unpopular.
On the end of European empire, see Keith Kyle, Suez (1991), Scott Lucas, Britain and Suez (1996), Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace (1973), Georges Fleury, La Guerre en Algérie (1993), Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall (2000), Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars (1984), and Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle (2 vols., 1993). René Rémond, Le Retour de De Gaulle (1983), is a good summary of the problems of the late Fourth Republic.
‘The Sixties’ is an enormous subject. I have a weakness for Arthur Marwick, The Sixties (1998), but it was devastatingly reviewed by Roger Kimball, whose own contemptuous remarks as to universities were recorded in Tenured Radicals (1990). The same theme, with a very brave attempt to associate it with longer-term factors, comes up in Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (1987). Lara V. Marks, Sexual Chemistry (2001), records the emergence of the Pill.
On the political side, see Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life (2003), on JFK, and his Flawed Giant (1999) on Johnson, and Robert E. Quirk, Fidel Castro (1996). Of books on Vietnam, I single out despite very strong competition Michael Lind, Vietnam (2002), Frances Fitzgerald, Fire in the Lake (2002), Mark W. Woodruff, Unheralded Victory (1999), and Gabriel Kolko, Vietnam (1986). See also Margaret Macmillan, Nixon and Mao (2007). Jonathan Aitken, Nixon (1993), is sympathetic.
The worldwide inflationary consequences of this era are documented by Harold James, International Financial History in the Twentieth Century (2003), and Barry Eichengreen, The European Economy since 1945 (2007). Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money (2008), is a superb exercise in perspective, with sharp comments as to particular instances of greed and stupidity. Daniel Yergin, The Prize (1992), examines the most important element in the inflationary crisis of the 1970s and has also become a classic.
The counter-attack of the later 1970s and the following capitalist boom of the 1980s are recorded in Arthur Seldon, Capitalism (1990), Edward Luttwak, Turbo-Capitalism (1998), Paul Craig Roberts, The Supply Side Revolution (1984). Andrew Brown, Fishing in Utopia (2008), is a sympathetic account of the failure of the Swedish model. Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty (1989), attacks the business, or racket, of international aid. It owes much to Peter Bauer, Reality and Rhetoric (1985).
American demonstrations that the welfare system had failed are legion, but see especially Charles Murray, Losing Ground (1984), and Myron Magnet, The Dream and the Nightmare (2000). Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights (1998), are triumphalist.
Chile emerges with Nathaniel Davis, The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende (1985), and Mary Helen Spooner, Soldiers in a Narrow Land: The Pinochet Regime in Chile (1994); and Turkey in Andrew Mango, The Turks To-day (2004), Nicole Pope and Hugh Pope, Turkey Unveiled (2004), Hamit Bozarslan, La Question kurde (1997), Anne Krueger and Okan Aktan, Swimming against the Tide (1992), and William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (1993). A good account is Mehmet Ali Birand, Thirty Hot Days (1985), but we are not spoiled for Turks’ own accounts of their recent history.
For British affairs, we are indeed spoiled. Hugo Young, One of Us (1989), is understanding of Margaret Thatcher’s approach, though at the time he was a considerable critic. Richard Cockett’s Thinking the Unthinkable (1994) is a classic about the IEA. The memoirs of Denis Healey (1989), Nigel Lawson (1992) and of course Margaret Thatcher herself (1993 and 1995) record the era. John Hoskyns’s Just in Time (2000) is a little gem as to what went wrong, right and wrong again. Ferdinand Mount, Mind the Gap (2004), is an immensely thoughtful exercise. Melanie Phillips, All Must Have Prizes (1996), is another on education. In general, Alan Sked, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Post-War Britain (1997), and Richard Vinen, Thatcher’s Britain (2009), can be strongly recommended.