This book traces the whole of Europe from the end of World War II to 1992 and the scheduled reunification of Western Europe. The book examines, in greater context, the East European revolution of 1989 and the changes in the Soviet Union, as well as assessing the aftermath of the Cold War, the post-war period that most commentators feel has come to an end. The unification of Western Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Empire, the author argues, don't mark the end of history, as some claim, but the beginning of another era - of a new Europe - one quite unlike, yet in some ways parallel, to the Europe that presided over the world at the end of the previous century.