Through dozens of interviews and never-before-seen documents, Boot rescues Edward Lansdale (1908–1987) from historical ignominy to “restore a sense of proportion” to this “political Svengali, or ‘Lawrence of Asia’ ”(The New Yorker). Praised as a “superb scholarly achievement” (Foreign Policy), The Road Not Taken confirms Max Boot’s role as a “master chronicler” (Washington Times) of American military affairs. Investigating this forgotten struggle and the reasons of its defeat can be useful not just to scholars and students eager to understand the historical evolution of European integration, the European Left, and European capitalism, but also to anyone interested in building alternative European and global futures.įinalist for the Pulitzer Prize (Biography) A New York Times bestseller, this “epic and elegant” biography (Wall Street Journal) profoundly recasts our understanding of the Vietnam War. The defeat of 'social Europe' was a result of a decade-long social conflict which ended with the affirmation of a neoliberal Europe. During the pivotal years following 1968, deeply marked by labour militancy, new social movements, economic crisis, and the unmaking of the 'postwar compromise', a window of opportunity opened in which European integration could have taken different roads. This project favoured coordinated measures for wealth redistribution, market regulation, a democratisation of the economy and of European institutions, upward harmonisation of social and fiscal systems, more inclusive welfare regimes, guaranteed employment, economic and social planning with greater consideration for the environment, increased public spending to meet collective needs, greater control of capital flows and multinational corporations, a reduction in working time, and a fairer international economic order favouring the global south. Based on fresh archival material, it shows that the western European Left-in particular social democratic parties, trade unions, and to a lesser extent 'Eurocommunist' parties-formulated a project to turn 'capitalist Europe' into a 'workers' Europe'. This book examines the European Left's attempt to think and give shape to an alternative type of European integration-a 'social Europe'-during the long 1970s. Why, at these dramatic turning points, did history finally fail to turn? McLynn examines Britain’s history and themes of social, religious and political change to explain why social turbulence stopped short of revolution on so many occasions. Frank McLynn takes seven occasions when Britain came closest to revolution: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 the Jack Cade rebellion of 1450 the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 the English Civil Wars of the 1640s the Jacobite Rising of 1745-6 the Chartist Movement of 1838-48 and the General Strike of 1926. The contrast with Britain’s European neighbours, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Russia, is dramatic – all have been convulsed by external warfare, revolution and civil war and experienced fundamental change to their ruling elites or social and economic structures. Britain has not been successfully invaded since 1066 nor, in nearly 1,000 years has it known a true revolution – one that brings radical, systemic and enduring change.
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