Ian Buruma is Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College, in New York State. Murder in Amsterdam won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. He was awarded the Erasmus Prize in 2008.
Buruma's book is a study of the mess that the world was in 1945, a
mess we choose largely not to remember. It is also a brief but
valuable study of how that mess began to be cleaned up. It gives
us, too, simple lessons, both touching and terrifying, about how
human beings are and can be... Excellent and lucid
*The Times*
A superbly written chronicle of the conflict's bittersweet
aftermath
*Observer*
Sweeping... [The] book's most substantial merit is its grasp of the
moral, social, and political confusions that pervaded every nation
following the war... Buruma conveys a powerful sense of the horror
and chaos of 1945
*Foreign Affairs*
A graphic account - well-researched, splendidly constructed and
stylishly written - of the hinge year of the twentieth century, of
its horrors, hopes, illusions and roots of troubles to come.
Altogether compelling - a fine achievement.
*Ian Kershaw*
Moving and excellent
*Guardian*
Brilliant... Year Zero is a major acheivement, a book of many
parts, which commemorates a generation, as they stood on the brink
of an unknown future
*Spectator*
Ian Buruma's elegant and humane new book illuminates one of the
most important modern
historical moments... As generations with few memories of the
second world war come of age in Europe and Asia, this luminous book
will remind them of the importance of what Buruma terms "mental
surgeons", the politicians and warriors who reconstructed two
continents left in rubble.
*Financial Times*
Ian Buruma's wonderful book is about a time, immediately after the
end of the war, which has somehow fallen between the cracks of
history, and which the author has now devastatingly brought to
light... A compelling and astounding addition to the literature of
the war
*Daily Mail*
Buruma excels as a social historian of the aftermath of the war...
It is hard to overstate Buruma's accomplishment in crafting the
first truly worldwide account of perceptions and experiences in the
pivotal years after the guns had fallen silent... Outstanding
*Prospect*
Ian Buruma's lively new history, Year Zero, is about the various
ways in which the aftermath of the Good War turned out badly for
many people, and splendidly for some who didn't deserve it. It is
enriched by his knowledge of six languages, a sense of personal
connection to the era and his understanding of this period
*New York Times*
It is well written and researched, full of little-known facts and
incisive political analysis. What makes it unique among hundreds of
other works written about this period is that it gives an overview
of the effects of the war and liberation, not only in Europe, but
also in Asia.
*New York Review of Books*
Year Zero - 1945 - is the founding moment of the modern era. Ian
Buruma's history of that moment is vivid, compassionate and
compelling.
*Michael Ignatieff*
A brilliant recreation of that decisive year of victory and defeat,
chaos and humiliation, concentrating on peoples, not states... In
the face of so much horror, it is an astounding effort at deep
comprehension. A superb book, splendidly written.
*Fritz Stern*
Ian Buruma gives a heart-wrenching account of the horrors, the
unimaginable cruelties, and the sheer stupidities of the last
months of World War II, and the attempts to deal with them in the
first months of peace.
*Brian Urquhart*
Year Zero is a searing indictment of war, yet not about the Second
World War itself but about its aftermath, the trauma, the revenge,
the regrets, the desire to forget, the need to remember... This is
Ian Buruma at his best.
*Donald Sassoon*
Buruma is an admirably thoughtful writer
*Sunday Times*
Intelligent, fresh and compelling
*Daily Telegraph*
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