Revolution, Rebuilding, and New Challenges (Ch. 31)

As the Soviet Union finally began its decline with the election of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, the United Kingdom was one of the few nations that did not truly take part in the changing map of Europe. While the Soviet Union collapsed and Eastern Europe experienced the demolition of communism and revolutions in Yugoslavia and all of Europe, the United Kingdom concerned itself with the prevention of future conflict through organized actions. While expanding NATO and the United Nations to ensure collective security, the UK also took part in establishing the European Union and other groups designed to improve Europe's economy. Although the population rate of Europe is declining each year, it has found stability in politics for the most part. Economics continue to be a slight problem in the Eastern European countries, which have failed to recover from Communism. However, countries like the UK are working hard to ensure that stability will again become the norm in Europe.

Cold War Conflicts and Social Transformations in the UK (CH. 30)

With the end of the Second World War came a complete change in the face of Europe, England included.  Great Britain, along with France and The United States, combined to occupy West Germany, opposing the communist USSR occupying East Germany.  Europe was split into the region east of the "Iron Curtain" and the western portion of Europe.  This is also known as a period of great economic crisis, one of the greatest in European history. Britain and other nations combined to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which provided military protection for non-communist countries.  But not only was their drastic change in politics and the economy, but the world changed socially as well.  The youth revolution, particularly prominent in London, was taking over Europe.  When these youths, born after the end of WWII, grew of age they would become the counterculture that rebelled against parents, authority figures, and the status quo.  Bob Dylan sums it up best when he says in song "the times they are a' changing", and indeed they were.  

Britain WWII

Britain came into WWII to aid France, their allies, who had been invaded by Germany and taken under siege. Germany progressed and bombed London. But Britain held strong and after the bombing the persisted to fight against Germany with the aid of America.