Year zero : a history of 1945 /
Ian Buruma.
- New York : Penguin Books, 2013.
- 368 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-353) and index.
This sweeping book examines the seven months (in Europe) and four months (in Asia) that followed the surrender of the Axis powers, from the fate of Holocaust survivors liberated from the concentration camps, and the formation of the state of Israel, to the incipient civil war in China, and the allied occupation of Japan. It was a time when terrible revenge was taken on collaborators and their former masters; of ubiquitous black markets, war crime tribunals; and the servicing of millions of occupation troops, former foes in some places, liberators in others.