What is Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 about?

The title "Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945" refers to the history of European nations after World War II (1939–1945). The war in Europe ended with German surrender in May of 1945. The peace brought a divided continent with everything west of Germany remaining basically as it was before the war with a group of sovereign nations including France, Great Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In the east, however, former sovereign nations such as Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states came under the rule of the Communist Soviet Union. Germany was also divided with the east falling under Soviet control while the west was initially under Allied hegemony but eventually free to form a democratic republic (Federal Republic of Germany). Even the former capital city of Berlin was divided with an American sector, British sector, French sector and Soviet sector. The Soviets constructed a wall through the middle of the city as a barrier, mostly to keep citizens under their control from fleeing to the west.
After the war, the United States continued its presence in Western Europe by pumping billions of dollars into the European economy through the Marshall Plan, officially the European Recovery Act, devised by US Secretary of State General George Marshall. The plan helped rebuild parts of Europe which had been destroyed by the war and was crucial in bringing back prosperity to Western Europe. While money was also offered to the Soviet Union and its satellite nations, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin steadfastly refused. The plan proved to be an overwhelming success and by 1952 the economies of the Western European nations were actually larger than they had been before the war. Unfortunately, this economic growth did not occur in Eastern Europe which increasingly fell under Soviet domination. Although the United States, Soviet Union, and Great Britain had worked together to defeat the Nazis, the postwar climate only saw division.    
These divisions laid the framework for the Cold War, a term referring to the dormant state of war which existed between the United States and her Western European allies and the Soviet Union for many years after the war (some historians would argue it never ended and has been reborn under current Russian strongman Vladimir Putin). In 1949 the US and its chief allies formed NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) while the Soviets countered the Warsaw Pact, an alliance of Central and Eastern European nations and the Soviet Union. Also in 1949 the Soviet Union detonated its own atomic bomb, further increasing tensions between the two sides. During this Cold War, both sides have refrained from any direct confrontations, basically heeding the tenants of a doctrine known as "mutually assured destruction."
By the late 1980s the Soviet Union had badly frayed, both economically and politically. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev presided over a series of reforms he hoped could save the nation but they failed and he resigned in December of 1991. The nation collapsed and 15 separate nations arose from the dust. The Berlin Wall had preceded this disintegration, coming down in November of 1989. Today, Russia under Vladimir Putin, despite being one of the smallest economies in Europe, has again asserted itself by occupying parts of Ukraine which had become independent in 1991. This has again led to tensions between NATO and the Russians.
Not long after the fall of the Soviet Union much of Europe including old Warsaw Pact nations formed the European Union to further unite the continent. While politically unpopular in some parts of Europe (Britain recently voted to leave the EU), the union has strengthened several aspects of European life with a single currency, easier, passport free travel, equal opportunities and improved air and water quality. In fact, Western Europe has greatly prospered in the postwar years with Germany, France and Great Britain among the top six richest economies in the world.