FOCUS QUESTION How did changes in social relations contribute to European stability on both sides of the iron curtain?

While Europe staged its astonishing political and economic recovery from the Nazi nightmare and colonized peoples won independence, the basic structures of Western society were also in transition. A changing class structure, new patterns of global migration, and new roles for women and youths had dramatic impacts on everyday life, albeit with different effects in the East Bloc and western Europe. Yet such large-scale changes had transformative effects on both sides of the iron curtain: social and cultural trends joined political and economic recovery to build stability in the postwar decades.