ABSTRACT
The half-century after World War II exhibited cyclical trends in Europe. Beginning in the reconstruction years, Western and Southern Europe experienced history’s most exuberant boom until the late 1960s-early 1970s. This was based on a new technological revolution, imported from the United States, signaled by atomic energy and the opening of the age of computer, transistor, and chips. Troubles started gathering from the late 1960s, with increasing inflation and slowing down. Two oil crises and a marked structural crisis generated the new phenomenon of stagflation and an economic downturn until the mid-late 1980s. Since that time, the communication revolution, signaled by the start of the personal computer age and followed by an endless wave of electronic inventions and innovations, generated a new boom period that lasted for an additional quarter-century.
