Based on documents collected in six European countries, European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism and Contingency in the 1930s is a transnational study of largely parallel developments in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Spain in the years 1933-1936. Triggered into action by the shock effect of the Nazi rise to power in Germany, socialists throughout Western Europe entered an unusually active period of practical reorientation and debate over political strategy which helped determine the contours of European politics up to the outbreak of World War II and beyond. Stressing the transnational dimension of this process while simultaneously integrating local, regional, and national factors, this work finds that it was social democracy, rather than communism, that acted as the primary vehicle for radical change among European marxists during the 1930s. Following major figures within the European left and the significant events that made up the inter-war period, Gerd-Rainer Horn demonstrates the interconnectedness of Europe's interwar socialists. Finally, Horn manages to relate these findings to the ongoing interdisciplinary debate on structure, agency, and contingency in the historical process.

Offering a broad introduction to the methodology & practice of transnational history, this work focuses on three defining moments of 20th century European history, when changes affected the whole of the continent.

This book offers a new view of the twentieth century, placing international ideas and institutions at its heart.

European social democracy is in crisis. In the last decade it has ceased to be about either society or democracy. The authors explore its values, how it can be revived and what kind of political economy it requires to thrive. This book includes a foreword by the two leaders of the 'Building the Good Society' project, Andrea Nahles and Jon Cruddas.

The SAGE Handbook of Political Sociology offers a comprehensive and contemporary look at this evolving field of study. The focus is on political life itself and the chapters, written by a highly-respected and international team of authors, cover the core themes which need to be understood in order to study political life from a sociological perspective, or simply to understand the political world. The two volumes are structured around five key areas: PART 1: TRADITIONS AND PERSPECTIVES PART 2: CORE CONCEPTS PART 03: POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES AND MOVEMENTS PART 04: TOPICS PART 05: WORLD REGIONS This future-oriented and cross-disciplinary handbook is a landmark text for students and scholars interested in the social investigation of politics.

This book describes the establishment, evolution, and international links of the extreme right in one of the main Western European areas. Andrea Mammone details the long journey in the development of right-wing extremism in France and Italy, emphasizing the transfer, exchange, and borrowing of ideals, personnel, and strategies, and the similarities among neofascist movements, activists, and thinkers across national boundaries from 1945 to the present day - including the Cold War years, the election of the European Parliament in 1979, and the 2014 EU elections. Mammone analyzes the adaptation of neofascism in society and politics; the building of international associations and pan-national networks; and the right-leaning responses to the defeat of fascism, European integration, decolonization, the events of 1968, immigration, and the recent EU-led austerity politics. As a book implicitly on space, borders, and belonging, it shows how some nationalisms may embody a transnational dimension and, at times, even pan-European stances.

Anti-Fascism, Gender, and International Communism provides a comprehensive history of the Comite mondial des femmes contre la guerre et le fascisme (CMF), an international women’s organisation concerned with confronting the impact of fascism on women and children across the globe. Women played an essential role in the international struggle against fascism during the interwar period, although a focus on the efforts of men and political figures by the historiography has largely overshadowed women’s interventions against right-wing dictatorships. Through an examination of the committee’s key figures, strategies, connections, and campaigns, this book offers a significant contribution to the histories of both women’s activism and anti-fascist activism by positioning the CMF as an important contributor to international political advocacy in the interwar period. Further, the group’s association with international communism and the burgeoning Popular Front movement placed the CMF at the forefront of global debates about the threat posed by fascism and imperialism. This book explores how the professional women activists and the working-class women who populated the organisation developed a committee which advocated for women on a global scale. It charts how the CMF utilised a variety of physical spaces and literary formats to co-ordinate anti-fascist actions through its expansive and ambitious campaigns. The author also demonstrates the close connections between the Communist International and the CMF as a communist front organisation, to provide context for the group’s decision-making and prioritisation of certain campaigns over others. This book will be of interest to scholars of anti-fascism, feminism, women’s history, communism, activism, internationalism, anti-imperialism, and French history.

The Moment of Liberation in Western Europe, 1943-1948, regards the final two years of World War II and the immediate post-liberation period as a moment in twentieth century history, when the shape and contours of postwar Western Europe appeared highly uncertain and various alternatives and conflicting visions were up for grabs. After close to six years of total war, Nazi terror, and brutal occupation policies, a growing number of Europeans were no longer content solely to fight for national liberation from fascist control. Having staked their lives in military and civilian resistance to Nazism and Italian fascism across the continent, surviving activists were aiming to ensure that such a political and social catastrophe would never befall Europe again. In the closing moments of World War II, hundreds of thousands of antifascist activists had begun to identify with the famous quote penned by the exiled German social theorists, Max Horkheimer, who had boldly proclaimed in early September 1939: 'Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism.' The economic and political elites in prewar societies were increasingly regarded as co-responsible for war, fascism, and occupation policies, from which many had benefited significantly and often enthusiastically. There were extensive popular social movements at work in almost every single state which aimed to construct postwar societies in which grassroots democracy and the free association of rank-and-file activists would replace the profit principle and the top-down Jacobin orientation by traditional elites. This study for the first time reconstructs the parameters of this contest over the shape of postwar Western Europe from a consistently transnational perspective.

The essays in this book concern manifestations of political violence in the democracies of interwar Europe. While research in this area usually focuses on the countries that fell to fascism, the authors demonstrate that violence remained a part of political competition in the democratic regimes of Western Europe too.

This text gives a history of the European Left's successes and failures, its high and lows, its accomplishments, insufficiencies, and excesses, and its formative, lasting influence on the political landscape of the West.