The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us - Paperback

by Keith Lowe (Author)

Bestselling historian Keith Lowe's The Fear and the Freedom looks at the astonishing innovations that sprang from WWII and how they changed the world.

The Fear and the Freedom is Keith Lowe's follow-up to Savage Continent. While that book painted a picture of Europe in all its horror as WWII was ending, The Fear and the Freedom looks at all that has happened since, focusing on the changes that were brought about because of WWII--simultaneously one of the most catastrophic and most innovative events in history. It killed millions and eradicated empires, creating the idea of human rights, and giving birth to the UN. It was because of the war that penicillin was first mass-produced, computers were developed, and rockets first sent to the edge of space. The war created new philosophies, new ways of living, new architecture: this was the era of Le Corbusier, Simone de Beauvoir and Chairman Mao.

Author Biography

KEITH LOWE is the author of the critically-acclaimed Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg 1943, and Savage Continent, an international bestseller and the winner of both the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History (2013), and Italy's prestigious Cherasco History Prize (2015). He lectures on both sides of the Atlantic, appears on TV and radio in Europe and the US, and writes for a variety of magazines and newspapers around the world. He lives in north London with his wife and children.