Today it is widely recognised that the 'long 1970s' was a decisive international transition period during which traditional, collective-oriented socio-economic interest and welfare policies were increasingly replaced by the more individually and neo-liberally oriented value policies of the post-industrial epoch. Seen from a distance of three decades, it is increasingly clear that these socio-economic and socio-cultural processes also found their expression at the level of national and international political power. The contributors to this volume explore these processes of political-cultural realignment and their social impetus in Western Europe and the Euro-Atlantic area in and around the 1970s in the context of three agenda-setting topics of international history of this period: human rights, including the impact of decolonisation; East-West detente in Europe; and transnational relations and discourses. Going beyond the so-called Americanisation processes of the immediate postwar period, this volume reclaims Europe's place - and particularly that of smaller European nations - in contemporary Western history, demonstrating Europe's contribution to transatlantic transformation processes in political culture, discourse, and power during this period.

Today it is widely recognised that the 'long 1970s' was a decisive international transition period during which traditional, collective-oriented socio-economic interest and welfare policies were increasingly replaced by the more individually and neo-liberally oriented value policies of the post-industrial epoch. Seen from a distance of three decades, it is increasingly clear that these socio-economic and socio-cultural processes also found their expression at the level of national and international political power. The contributors to this volume explore these processes of political-cultural realignment and their social impetus in Western Europe and the Euro-Atlantic area in and around the 1970s in the context of three agenda-setting topics of international history of this period: human rights, including the impact of decolonisation; East-West detente in Europe; and transnational relations and discourses. Going beyond the so-called Americanisation processes of the immediate postwar period, this volume reclaims Europe's place - and particularly that of smaller European nations - in contemporary Western history, demonstrating Europe's contribution to transatlantic transformation processes in political culture, discourse, and power during this period.

The relaxation of the Cold War Bloc tensions in the 1970s ? the so-called - detente process ?- was a watershed in the history of the Cold War. Recent research suggests that this process is far more significant than previously believed for understanding and explaining the developments that brought about the peaceful end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. The present collection of essays provides a rich and detailed account of many important yet neglected aspects of these processes. The contributions elucidate the European detente process from NGO grass-root as well as top diplomatic level perspectives, including the Helsinki Conference and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, and in particular its stipulations on respect of human rights and human contacts across the Iron Curtain. The contributions are original research based on recently opened and not previously used state and private archives in Western and Eastern Europe and in the United States. Together, they shed new and fascination light on a defining chapter in recent European history.

This book presents pieces of evidence, which - taken together - lead to an argument that goes against the grain of the established Cold War narrative. The argument is that a "long detente" existed between East and West from the 1950s to the 1980s, that it existed and lasted for good (economic, national security, societal) reasons, and that it had a profound impact on the outcome of the conflict between East and West and the quintessentially peaceful framework in which this "endgame" was played. By offering new, Euro-centered narratives that include both West and East European perspectives, the contributions of this volume point to critical inconsistencies and inherent problems in the traditional U.S. dominated narrative of the "Victory in the Cold War." Yet rather than replacing this narrative, the argument of a "long detente" demonstrates that this can and needs to be augmented with the plentitude of European experiences and perceptions.After all, it was Europe - its peoples, societies, and states - that stood both at the ideological and military frontline of the conflict between East and West, and it was here that the struggle between liberalism and communism was eventually decided.