Postwar theses
Sir: It's hard to demur at so genial a critic as George Gale; but some of his asides in reviewing Postwar (21 May) really won't do, Hitler's and Napoleon's conquests did not give citizens a wider community: they imposed alien rule. The Common Market does not divide Europe or exclude the East: it forms the nucleus of a wider free trade area and helps to stabilise East-West rela- tions. And my 'broad thesis' is not that 'the Treaties of Rome secured European pro- sperity and began the unification of Europe'. Desperate energy and forward planning secured prosperity; and the effort to unite Europe began in the wartime Resistance. The only 'thesis' in Postwar is that the Europe and the world we now live in are largely the achievement of what might be called 'the class of '45'. As George Gale says, both he and I had the luck to be part of it. Where is its counterpart today?
Richard Mayne
Albany Cottage, 24 Park Village East, London NW I
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