Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest

Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest is the definitive history of the Eurovision Song Contest and its political and cultural significance.
Drawing on pioneering archival research, Dean Vuletic traces the contest's evolution, covering its early origins and every annual edition from 1956 to 2025. He reveals how Eurovision has reflected and shaped the political history of postwar Europe and become the world's biggest election.
Using Eurovision as a unique lens on European societies, Vuletic explores themes ranging from democracy, revolution and war to diversity, prosperity and technology. He shows how debates concerning the contest have mirrored wider struggles over European integration, national identity and political power.
Challenging popular myths and illuminating Eurovision's global reach, this new edition demonstrates why the contest remains the most politically revealing cultural arena of modern Europe.
This second edition includes:
· updates to the original chapters, incorporating newly discovered archival sources and recent academic publications
· an additional chapter examining developments in Eurovision's seventh decade, including global expansion, protest movements and participant expulsions
· a new conclusion reflecting on the author's first-person, live experience of the contest

Dean Vuletic is a historian of contemporary Europe who specialises in the Eurovision Song Contest, including as a media commentator and public speaker. He began teaching the world's first university course on Eurovision at New York University; as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Vienna, he then led a research project on the history of Eurovision. He holds a PhD in modern European history from Columbia University, and he currently lectures at the University of Luxembourg.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction: Europe's Greatest Television Show
Part 1 The Cold War, 1945-1989
1 The Western European Arrangement
2 The Show of Nations
3 A Contest for Communism
Part 2 European Unification, 1990-2025
4 A Concert of Europe
5 The Value of Eurovision
6 The Global Song Contest
Conclusion: From Switzerland to Switzerland
Notes
Sources
Index