ABSTRACT
Recent years have seen the publication of two excellent social histories of western Europe based on statistical series and stressing structural change (Kaelble, 1989; Ambrosius and Hubbard, 1989). The use of such statistics does not, however, on its own, create a picture of society as a complete and lively experience. Moreover, in dealing with western Europe since 1945, the confrontation of the numerous national bodies of statistical evidence, and continental features and trends, produces scope for complex quantitative exercises, but it does not necessarily generate readable history. So in what follows, and in Chapter 11, the treatment will be more discursive and even impressionistic. There will be many omissions, and many arguable generalisations no doubt, but the reader can be the judge of these, for much of it will be dealing with the recent past - his (or her) own history.
