This collectively written monograph is the first work to provide a broad history of the relationship between Eastern Europe and the decolonising world. It ranges from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, but at its core is the dynamic of the post-1945 period, when socialism's importance as a globalising force accelerated and drew together what contemporaries called the 'Second' and 'Third Worlds'. At the centre of this history is the encounter between the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on one hand, and a wider world casting off European empires or struggling against western imperialism on the other. The origins of these connections are traced back to new forms of internationalism enabled by the Russian Revolution; the interplay between the first 'decolonisation' of the twentieth century in Eastern Europe and rising anti-colonial movements; and the global rise of fascism, which created new connections between East and South. The heart of the study, however, lies in the Cold War, when these contacts and relationships dramatically intensified. A common embrace of socialist modernisation and anti-imperial culture opened up possibilities for a new and meaningful exchange between the peripheries of Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Such linkages are examined across many different fields - from health to archaeology, economic development to the arts - and through many people - from students to experts to labour migrants - who all helped to shape a different form and meaning of globalisation.

Over the past few years, something remarkable has occurred in Latin America. For the first time since the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua in the 1980s, people within the region have turned toward radical left governments - specifically in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Why has this profound shift taken place and how does this new, so-called Twenty-First-Century Socialism actually manifest itself? What are we to make of the often fraught relationship between the social movements and governments in these countries and do, in fact, the latter even qualify as 'socialist' in reality? These are the bold and critical questions that Latin America's Turbulent Transitions explores. The authors provocatively argue that although US hegemony in the region is on the wane, the traditional socialist project is also declining and something new is emerging. Going beyond simple conceptions of 'the left', the book reveals the true underpinnings of this powerful, transformative, and yet also complicated and contradictory process.

Militant Minority tells the compelling story of British Columbia workers who sustained a left tradition during the bleakest days of the Cold War. Through their continuing activism on issues from the politics of timber licenses to global questions of war and peace, these workers bridged the transition from an Old to a New Left.

In the late 1950s, half of B.C.'s workers belonged to unions, but the promise of postwar collective bargaining spawned disillusionment tied to inflation and automation. A new working class that was educated, white collar, and increasingly rebellious shifted the locus of activism from the Communist Party and Co-operative Commonwealth Federation to the newly formed New Democratic Party, which was elected in 1972. Grounded in archival research and oral history, Militant Minority provides a valuable case study of one of the most organized and independent working classes in North America, during a period of ideological tension and unprecedented material advance.

Now fully revised and updated for the second edition, this unique and authoritative account of the party systems in Eastern Europe examines their development from the revolutions of the late 1980s to the present day. The New Democracies in Eastern Europe presents a genuinely comparative perspective on the old and new party systems. Featuring detailed assessment and analysis of the situation in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, the volume draws upon research and opinion from a distinguished group of European scholars. Recognising that many of the social and political problems of the inter-war period continue to make themselves felt, the authors contend that the breakdown of the old authoritarian system was a by-product of a built-in and progressively worsening legitimacy crisis. Despite the great progress made by some East European countries, recent events confirm the view that authoritarianism has not lost its appeal. As an up-to-date and comprehensive survey of political change and development in Eastern Europe - rapidly produced to present the most recent information - this book will be welcomed by researchers, teachers and students.

First published in 1978, this book rapidly established itself as a classic of modern Marxism. Cohen's masterful application of advanced philosophical techniques in an uncompromising defense of historical materialism commanded widespread admiration. In the ensuing twenty years, the book has served as a flagship of a powerful intellectual movement--analytical Marxism. In this expanded edition, Cohen offers his own account of the history, and the further promise, of analytical Marxism. He also expresses reservations about traditional historical materialism, in the light of which he reconstructs the theory, and he studies the implications for historical materialism of the demise of the Soviet Union.

Written between The Communist Manifesto (1848) and the first volume of Capital (1867), Grundrisse--essential to the understanding of Marx's ideas--provides the only outline of his full political-economic theories.

A devastating critique of New Left thinking

In Fools, Frauds and Firebrands, Roger Scruton first surveys and then deconstructs the golden idols of left wing thought from the 1960s to the present day. He dissects the hollow works of Hobsbawm and E. P. Thompson, Galbraith and Dworkin, Sartre and Foucault and exposes the lack of coherence in the works of Althusser, Lacan, Deleuze, Badiou and Zizek.

Scruton ponders why the humanities have become so unambiguously aligned to the left, and reveals how fully such thinking has seized the academy in its grasp. In this provocative, compelling and highly entertaining book he explains why empty rhetoric abounds over careful analysis and blatant nonsense over respectable logic, in a shattering demolition of some of today's most fashionable philosophers.

Evo Morales is one of the world's most controversial political leaders. His story is extraordinary: poor shepherd-boy, persecuted coca grower, self-professed admirer of Che Guevara, hero of the anti-globalization movement, and first indigenous president of modern Latin America. The story of the social movement turned political party he is a part of -- the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) -- is also exceptional: originally founded as a splinter of an ultra-right party, it was given as a gift for the coca growers after they had been banned several times for spurious reasons to register their own party, and went on to become an irresistible force for indigenous rights in Bolivia. In this insightful and revealing book, Sven Harten explains the success of the MAS and its wider consequences, showing how Morales has become the symbol for a new political consciousness that has entailed de-stigmatizing indigenous identities. In many ways, the analysis of Morales's political trajectory serves as a mirror for democracy in Bolivia. It reveals the challenge of squaring the rupture with a discredited past with the continuity of democracy and the aim of representing an entire society.

Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience. Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure. But, according to socialism's adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were "real socialism". This book documents the history of this, by now, standard response. It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism. On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals. It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as "not real socialism".

Why is the United States the only advanced capitalist country with no labor party? This question is one of the great enduring puzzles of American political development, and it lies at the heart of a fundamental debate about the nature of American society. Tackling this debate head-on, Robin Archer puts forward a new explanation for why there is no American labor party--an explanation that suggests that much of the conventional wisdom about "American exceptionalism" is untenable.

Conventional explanations rely on comparison with Europe. Archer challenges these explanations by comparing the United States with its most similar New World counterpart--Australia. This comparison is particularly revealing, not only because the United States and Australia share many fundamental historical, political, and social characteristics, but also because Australian unions established a labor party in the late nineteenth century, just when American unions, against a common backdrop of industrial defeat and depression, came closest to doing something similar.

Archer examines each of the factors that could help explain the American outcome, and his systematic comparison yields unexpected conclusions. He argues that prosperity, democracy, liberalism, and racial hostility often promoted the very changes they are said to have obstructed. And he shows that it was not these characteristics that left the United States without a labor party, but, rather, the powerful impact of repression, religion, and political sectarianism.

The United States is known as a country that has been highly antagonistic to Socialism of any form. Socialists in the United States have tended to be political outsiders, mounting criticisms of the government without serving in elected office themselves. However, from around 1900 to 1920, Socialist politicians in the United States were prominent and active at the municipal level, holding office as government insiders. Socialist mayors in over two hundred small cities across the United States brought meaningful improvements in the quality of life for people in their communities, playing an important role in this period's municipal reform movement. Despite the limitations of being associated with a minority party-particularly a party that divided over whether to pursue elected office in the United States-these mayors pushed for reforms, challenged the status quo, and held their own in demonstrating the ability to govern. Socialist Mayors in the United States is the first comprehensive study of nationwide Socialist activity at the municipal level during the Progressive Era. It is a unique study of the Socialist mayors in this period: their election, how they approached their job, and what they accomplished. Berman offers a fresh look at the nature of the Socialist Party by focusing on its municipal program, interaction with non-Socialist municipal reformers, local political operations, and the tensions within the party as it delved into political action on this level. Socialist Mayors in the United States is an illumination of seldom-explored political and governmental characteristics of medium and small towns, often very small towns, where Socialists enjoyed most of their successes.

As leading New Leftists in the Sixties, Peter Collier and David Horowitz were intimately involved in the radicalism of the day. Later on, they became the first of their generation to publicly reject the objectives of that revolutionary era and point out the cultural chaos it had left behind. Part memoir, part political analysis, part social history, DESTRUCTIVE GENERATION is the compelling story of their intellectual journey into and out of the radical trenches. Telling stories of the New Left's most famous (and infamous) personalities and events, Collier and Horowitz reveal the destructive legacy of the Sixties and the way in which that decade continues to cast a long shadow over politics and culture today. When it was first published more than a decade ago, DESTRUCTIVE GENERATION was a controversial bestseller that some critics compared to Whittaker Chambers' powerful political testament, WITNESS. This new edition contains new material which makes this classic work more relevant than ever in our own divided time.

Much has been written about the activity of Lenin and his colleagues on the editorial board of the Iskra newspaper, whereas little has been said about the opponents of Leninism, who unsuccessfully fought for control of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. To redress the balance, Richard Mullin has translated 25 documents from this period, most of which express an anti-Lenin view. The result is not an anti-Bolshevik polemic: through these documents a clearer and curiously flattering picture of Lenin's thought and activity is obtained.

"Socialism" names a form of collective life that has never been fully realized; consequently, it is best understood as a goal to be imagined. So this study argues, and thereby uncovers an aesthetic impulse that animates some of the most consequential socialist writing, thought, and practice of the long nineteenth century. Imagining Socialism explores this tradition of radical activism, investigating the diverse ways that British socialists—from Robert Owen to the mid-century Christian Socialists to William Morris—marshalled the resources of the aesthetic in their efforts to surmount "politics" and develop non-governmental forms of collective life. Their ambitious attempts at social regeneration led some socialists to explore the liberatory possibilities afforded by cooperative labor, women's emancipation, political violence, and the power of the arts themselves. Imagining Socialism demonstrates that, far from being confined to the "socialist revival" of the fin de siècle, important socialist experiments with the emancipatory potential of the aesthetic in Britain may be found throughout the period it calls the "socialist century"—and may still inspire us today.

Harold Laski (1893-1950) was perhaps the best known socialist intellectual of his era, influential in the USA, India and mainland Europe as well as Britain. A controversial figure, he was attacked in the Cold War years for his continued defence of socialist principles. This biography argues that Laski has been misrepresented. It maintains that he dedicated his life to the quest for a just society, and that his thought remains highly relevant for our own times. This first paperback edition includes a new preface assessing the relevance of Laski's legacy today. Some Reviews of the hardback edition: 'In this beautifully written, minutely researched and very thoughtful book, Professor Newman has at last provided Laski with the biography that he so manifestly deserves.' Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 'Mr Newman's brilliant book is eminently worthy of his subject'. Jewish Chronicle 'Justice has now been done in Michael Newman's excellent, well-researched and eloquent biography. It has the supreme merit of bringing together Laski's roles as theorist and activist'. New Statesman and Society 'a closely argued book which offers an intelligent and spirited defence of Laski'. The Guardian

Blair's community is an exciting and timely book which challenges the accepted wisdom about the role of communitarian thought in the development of New Labour under Tony Blair. From the mid-1990s there has been a widespread view that Labour policies have reflected, or even been influenced by, the work of communitarian writers like Amitai Etzioni and John Macmurray, and philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel. The book begins by establishing that such a view was widely, and frequently unquestioningly, held, in both popular and academic forums. It then identifies reasons for the persistence of this impression, the evidence on which it was based, and the understandings of communitarianism used by commentators. The book argues that existing accounts of 'New Labour's communitarianism' fail to present an accurate picture because they are - in some cases explicitly - working with a generic or composite conception of communitarianism which bears little relation to the work of the communitarian writers whose names have been associated with the party. -- .

In this fully updated edition of his coruscating polemic, Tariq Ali shows how, since 1989, politics has become a contest to see who can best serve the needs of the market. In this urgent and wide-ranging case for the prosecution, Ali looks at the people and the events that have informed this moment across the world. This reaches its logical conclusion with the presidency of Donald Trump, the success of En Marche in France and the dominance of Merkel's Germany through Europe. But are we starting to see cracks within the fabric of the extreme centre? In a series of new chapters Ali suggests that there is room for hope. He finds promise in developments in Latin America and at the edges of Europe. Emerging parties across Europe, Greece and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, are offering new hope for democracy. In the UK, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn indicates that the hegemony of the centre may be weaker than imagined.

What is the future for progressive politics in advanced capitalism? With its political fortunes so low, how might the Left move forward? These essays from leading left intellectuals - Dean Baker, Fred Block, David Coates, Hilary Wainwright, Colin Crouch, Wolfgang Streeck, Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin and Matthew Watson - reflect on the scale and nature of the task that the Left now faces and consider the following questions: * What in modern capitalism has brought the Left to this impasse?* What role has the Left played in its own failings?* What lessons can be learnt for progressive politics going forward?* What are the immediate options and how can they best be pursued? The views and opinions expressed vary, but all offer searching insights into the task the Left now faces. All point to the intellectual and practical experience on which the Left now needs to draw as it deals with its contemporary challenges. These essays represent a major statement on the future for centre-left politics and offer a frank appraisal of the Left's current capacity to keep conservatism at bay and to strengthen radical politics again.

Bernie Sanders' tilt at the US presidency has come under fire from an establishment that derides his social democratic policies as alien to the American way. But, as Ted Hamm reveals in this engaging and concise history, the sort of socialism Bernie advocates was commonplace in the Brooklyn where he grew up in the 1940s and 50s. Policies like free college tuition, rent control, and infrastructure projects including extensive public housing, parks and swimming pools were part of the New Deal city run by a progressive Mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, and supported by FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. While Arthur Miller, resident in Brooklyn Heights, was staging Death of a Salesman, a play with which Bernie's dad closely identified, Woody Guthrie was penning his paeans to the American worker in Coney Island and Jackie Robinson was breaking the color bar on Ebbets Field in a Dodgers team yet to be relocated in California. Drawing deeply on interviews with his brother and friends, and delving skillfully into the history of the borough, Bernie's Brooklyn shows how, far from being an anomaly in US politics, Sanders' 2020 platform is rooted firmly in the progressivism of the New Deal.

Does European integration contribute to, or even accelerate, the erosion of intra-party democracy? This book analyses the impact of European Union (EU) membership on power dynamics, focusing on the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party (PS), and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Utilising a principal-agent framework, it investigates who within the parties determines EU policies and selects EU specialists. Drawing on original interviews with EU experts from Labour, the PS, the SPD and the Party of European Socialists (PES), as well as an e-mail questionnaire, this book reveals that European policy has remained in the hands of the party leadership. The study also suggests that the party grassroots are interested in the EU, but that interest rarely translates into influence. As regards the selection of EU specialists, this book highlights that the parties' processes are highly political, often informal, and in some cases, undemocratic. -- .

An excellent resource for teaching and learning, this book explores the rise and decline of left radicalism in Scotland c.1872 to 1932. A journey through these turbulent times observes the response of Scottish artisans to legal restrictions on trade-union activities in the 1870s, trade union formation among the unskilled from the late 1880s, and the origins and impact of the Scottish socialist movement. The Labour movement in Scotland was to face many new challenges by the twentieth century. During the era of 'Red Scotland', 1910 to 1922, we see Scottish workers fully engaged in the labour and social unrest in the years before the Great War; monitor the incubation of workers' grievances during the war; see the growth of the anti-war movement and the influence of revolutionary politics from 1918; and witness Scottish Labour on the threshold of an extraordinary political breakthrough by 1922. The 1920s saw the rapid rise of Labour, but growing unemployment and a massive emigration of Scottish workers helped to fragment the left and set in motion the decline of left radicalism in Scotland. This book represents a major and up to date survey of the most dramatic years in the history of Scottish Labour. Key Features: * Provides comprehensive coverage of the period introducing new research sources and plugging gaps in current literature with case studies * Case studies provide detailed examination of important topics; 'new unionism'; strike and political action; quantitative method, 1910-14; new archive sources on 'revolutionary politics' * Provides case studies and regional comparative studies approach towards a better understanding of the main themes in the history of Scottish Labour * Two chapters look at the themes and issues concerned with writing Labour history

In post-war Britain, left-wing policy maker and sociologist Michael Young played a major role in shaping British intellectual, political, and cultural life, using his study of the social sciences to inform his political thought. In the mid-twentieth century the social sciences significantly expanded, and played a major role in shaping British intellectual, political and cultural life. Central to this intellectual shift was the left-wing policy maker and sociologist Michael Young. As a Labour Party policy maker in the 1940s, Young was a key architect of the Party's 1945 election manifesto, 'Let Us Face the Future'. He became a sociologist in the 1950s, publishing a classic study of the East London working class, Family and Kinship in East London with Peter Willmott in 1957, which he followed up with a dystopian satire, The Rise of the Meritocracy, about a future society in which social status was determined entirely by intelligence. Young was also a prolific social innovator, founding or inspiring dozens of organisations, including the Institute of Community Studies, the Consumers' Association, Which?magazine, the Social Science Research Council and the Open University. Moving between politics, social science, and activism, Young believed that disciplines like sociology, psychology and anthropology could help policy makers and politicians understand human nature, which in turn could help them to build better political and social institutions. This book examines the relationship between social science and public policy in left-wing politics between the end of the Second World War and the end of the first Wilson government through the figure of Michael Young. Drawing on Young's prolific writings, and his intellectual and political networks, it argues that he and other social scientists and policy makers drew on contemporary ideas from the social sciences to challenge key Labour values, like full employment and nationalisation, and to argue that the Labour Party should put more emphasis on relationships, family, and community. Showing that the social sciences were embedded in the project of social democratic governance in post-war Britain, it argues that historians and scholars should take their role in British politics and political thought seriously

A history of how Norway and Sweden became the envy of the modern world This is the history of how two countries on the northern edge of Europe built societies in the twentieth century that became objects of inspiration and envy around the world. Francis Sejersted, one of Scandinavia's leading historians, tells how Norway and Sweden achieved a rare feat by realizing grand visions of societies that combine stability, prosperity, and social welfare. It is a history that holds many valuable lessons today, at a time of renewed interest in the Scandinavian model. The book tells the story of social democracy from the separation of Norway and Sweden in 1905 through the end of the century, tracing its development from revolutionary beginnings through postwar triumph, as it became a hegemonic social order that left its stamp on every sector of society, the economy, welfare, culture, education, and family. The book also tells how in the 1980s, partly in reaction to the strong state, a freedom and rights revolution led to a partial erosion of social democracy. Yet despite the fracturing of consensus and the many economic and social challenges facing Norway and Sweden today, the achievement of their welfare states remains largely intact.