The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe's Families After World War II

Tara Zahra is Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago.

In this impressive multinational study, Zahra charts the history of humanitarian relief from the 1915 Armenian genocide to the postwar era, in the process demonstrating how the institutions of the family became politicized, whereby governments across Europe after 1945 began concerning themselves with promoting the family unit. Zahra demonstrates the impact of pre-1939 humanitarian campaigns on wartime thought. -- Frederic Krome Library Journal 20110501 Zahra's research examines the difficulties inherent in attempting to mend the social dislocation caused by war...Zahra's work is insightful in considering what treatment of lost children can tell us about broader developments in the post-war period, both in terms of how nations interacted with each other and how psychologists understood the impact of war on children. -- Hester Vaizey Times Higher Education 20110505 [A] fascinating book...Tara Zahra, a historian who made her name writing about the ambiguities of nationality in Czechoslovakia, has now added an important contribution to the growing literature on Europe's reconstruction after World War II...Zahra is especially good at tracing the connections between pedagogic theories and nationalist politics, and her rich source basis allows her to demonstrate the ubiquity of the problem. -- Mark Mazower New Republic online 20110620 [A] superb book...[A] wide-ranging, exceptionally well-researched study. -- Adam Kirsch Tablet Magazine 20110628