Looking Left: Socialism in Europe After the Cold War

In Europe, as in the United States, the dominant social democratic policy aims of the 1960s and 1970s have given way to a conservative consensus: inflation is the main enemy, the welfare state must be retrenched, unions should be cut down to size, labor markets deregulated, and state enterprises privatized. How accurate is this conventional view? Are the traditional liberal ideas in retreat throughout Europe? In Looking Left, a distinguished group of European historians tackles these questions, examining the extent to which the end of the Cold War has contributed to the redefinition of left-wing strategy and goals and the extent of the convergence between "right" and "left."