{"product_id":"europe-under-the-counter","title":"Europe Under the Counter","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: rgb(255, 42, 0);\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSmugglers, Survivors and Shadow Economies in Occupied Europe\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen occupying armies controlled the shops, railways, farms and currencies of Europe, ordinary commerce did not simply stop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt went underground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross occupied France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Greece, Italy, the Balkans and beyond, food vanished from official shelves while appearing through hidden routes. Farmers concealed livestock. Railway workers redirected crates. Couriers carried medicine, forged documents and wireless parts. Refugees paid guides to cross borders, and desperate families exchanged jewellery for bread.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome transactions kept people alive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome supported resistance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOthers turned suffering into extraordinary profit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEurope Under the Counter explores the sprawling shadow economies created by invasion, requisitioning, rationing and broken transport systems during the Second World War. Moving from rural farms and city markets to ghettos, ports, railway yards, mountain passes and post-liberation streets, Robin Wickens reveals how unofficial trade penetrated every level of occupied society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis was not one black market with one set of rules.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA hidden sack of flour might feed a farmer’s family, supply a partisan unit or be withheld until hungry city residents paid an impossible price.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA smuggling route might carry tobacco one night and persecuted refugees the next.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA forged identity card could support commercial fraud or save its bearer from deportation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe method was illegal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe purpose made the moral difference.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWritten in accessible British English with atmospheric detail, careful historical context and restrained humour, this book examines the difficult territory between survival, resistance, collaboration and profiteering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt considers:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow occupation authorities manipulated currencies and forced conquered countries to finance their own exploitation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhy ration cards controlled far more than food\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow farmers concealed crops, livestock and private reserves\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe role of women, children, railway workers, doctors, smugglers and corrupt officials\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlack markets in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Greece, Poland, Italy and the Balkans\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFood smuggling into ghettos and other places of deliberate deprivation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe movement of weapons, radios, forged papers and medical supplies\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe difference between a paid guide, a resistance courier and an exploitative trafficker\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow counterfeit medicine profited from desperation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhy Allied cigarettes became post-war currency\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow liberation changed suppliers without ending scarcity\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat families remembered long after rationing disappeared\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEurope Under the Counter does not romanticise criminality or place a hungry household beside an organised profiteer as if their actions were equivalent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInstead, it asks more demanding questions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWho controlled the goods?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWho accepted the risk?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWho paid the price?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWho was excluded?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd what did it mean to obey the law when the legal economy had been reorganised to serve an occupying power?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the second volume in Robin Wickens’s wartime black-market series, following Under the Counter: Britain’s Black Market During the Second World War.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is essential reading for anyone interested in the Second World War, occupation history, civilian survival, rationing, resistance networks, wartime crime, and the hidden economic life of Europe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe official ledger recorded what should have happened.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe market beneath it recorded what people did to survive.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Robs Books","offers":[{"title":"PDF","offer_id":57975270703448,"sku":null,"price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Ebook","offer_id":57975270736216,"sku":null,"price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Fip Book","offer_id":57975270768984,"sku":null,"price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0929\/9768\/1496\/files\/europe-under-the-counter-9336426.png?v=1788282627","url":"https:\/\/robsbooks.com.co\/products\/europe-under-the-counter","provider":"Robs Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}