What is contemporary history?
Contemporary history is the history of our own times, usually from 1945 (end of the Second World War) to today. Many people who lived through it are still alive, so historians use not only documents but also oral history (interviews), photos, film and digital sources.
Main eras: post-war rebuilding (1945–47), the Cold War and decolonisation (1947–1991), globalisation (1991–2008) and the digital age (since about 2008).
The post-war world: the UN and decolonisation
The United Nations was set up in 1945 to keep peace and protect human rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). Empires weakened, and colonies won independence: India and Pakistan (1947), Indonesia (1949), Ghana (1957), and many African countries around 1960. UN membership grew from 51 states to 193 today. Many new nations joined the Non-Aligned Movement (1961) instead of choosing a Cold War side.
Communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe
As the Soviet army pushed west in 1944–45, communist parties loyal to Moscow gained power in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania. The takeover used several tools: control of the police, pressure on other parties, a rigged referendum (Poland 1946) and rigged elections (Poland 1947). By 1948 one party ruled.
Everyday life
- One-party state: no free elections; secret police watched critics.
- Censorship of newspapers, books and radio.
- Planned economy: the state owned factories; free school and health care, but shortages and long queues.
- Protests came in waves – Poland 1956, 1968, 1970 and 1976 – often over food prices and freedom.
Leaders sometimes relaxed control a little (Poland after 1956, the 1970s “opening” with foreign loans), but debt and shortages grew.
1989–91 and the world at the turn of the millennium
In 1980 strikes at the Gdańsk shipyard created Solidarity, the first free trade union in the Soviet bloc, with about 10 million members. Martial law (1981) suppressed it, but in 1989 round-table talks led to partly free elections, which Solidarity won. Within months one-party rule ended across the region; the Berlin Wall fell (November 1989) and the USSR broke up in 1991.
A linked world
After 1991: more trade (WTO 1995), the EU widened (2004) and introduced the euro, India opened its economy (1991), China grew fast, and the internet and mobile phones spread. New challenges: terrorism (11 September 2001), the 2008 financial crisis, climate change, migration and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020).
Key formulas and definitions
- Contemporary history: history from 1945 to the present
- Decolonisation: colonies becoming independent nations
- One-party state: a country where only one party may rule
- Censorship: state control of what may be published or said
- Planned economy: the state decides what is produced and at what price
- Solidarity: Polish free trade union and protest movement (1980)
- Globalisation: growing links of trade, people and ideas across the world
Worked examples
1. Why is 1945 a good starting point for contemporary history?
The Second World War ended, the UN was founded, the USA and USSR became superpowers and decolonisation sped up. The world order we still live in began to take shape.
2. Give three ways communists took power in Poland in 1944–48.
(1) Control of the security police and army with Soviet support; (2) a rigged referendum in 1946 and rigged elections in 1947; (3) pressure, arrests and merging of rival parties until one party ruled (1948).
3. Explain the chain of causes that led to 1989 in Poland.
Shortages and debt → price rises → strikes (1980) → Solidarity formed → martial law (1981) but resistance continued → deep economic crisis and reforms in the USSR (late 1980s) → round-table talks (1989) → partly free elections won by Solidarity → peaceful end of one-party rule.
Common mistakes
- Thinking contemporary history means only the last few years – it starts in 1945.
- Believing communist parties won power by free, fair elections everywhere.
- Mixing up the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) with the break-up of the USSR (1991).
- Seeing globalisation as only economic – it also covers culture, travel and technology.