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Andrew Scott on the Left in Europe.

Article Excerpt
Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 New York, Oxford University Press, 2002

The recent positioning of major European nations against the United States of America over the issue of war on Iraq embodies wider differences between Europe as a site of residual social democracy and the rampant neoliberalism associated with the United States. Geoff Eley's 700-page new book reminds us of the strength of the Left's history in Europe, of its lasting legacy in creating such democracy as that continent now enjoys, and the rich resources which remain from the socialist tradition to improve the parched political environment in which we now live. In Forging Democracy, Eley's principal purpose is to demonstrate that democracy in Europe exists today because socialists, feminists, Communists and members of other radical movements began struggling for it in the nineteenth century, and because many parties of the Left continued these struggles in the revolutionary crisis after World War I, defending democracy against fascism from the 1930s and further strengthening democracy after 1945. This ambitious book seeks to comprehensively analyse both main elements of the European Left's history--communism and social democracy. It depicts the rich cultural life which was associated with some of the early political parties of the Left.

Eley is a...

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