Between Prague Spring and French May: Opposition and Revolt in Europe, 1960-1980: v. 7 (Protest, Culture and Society)

ISBN 10: 0857451065 ISBN 13: 9780857451064

Publisher: Berghahn Books, 2011

Synopsis

"Too often the protests of the 1960s are narrowly confined to the events of one year - 1968 - or to the same familiar set of countries. This welcome book offers broader vistas that includes European countries, big and small, from both sides of the Iron Curtain. In doing so, the authors allow us to transcend worn national narratives and reflect more broadly on how a whole continent was changed by the promise of global change and revolution. This book is thus an important addition for anyone seriously studying Europe in the postwar period." · James C. Kennedy, Author of Building New Babylon: The Netherlands in the 1960s, Professor of Dutch History since the Middle Ages, University of Amsterdam

"A wonderful work of collaborative and comparative history, truly international in scope. The authors teach at universities in nine different European nations, plus the United States and Japan. (...) The book will be of immense value to a wide range of specialists and can also be profitably read by anyone who lived through and wants to understand better the excitement, pain, trauma, and occasional triumphs of 1968, looking backward to 1960 and ahead to 1980 to place that extraordinary year in perspective." · David L. Schalk, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of History, Emeritus Vassar College

Abandoning the usual Cold War-oriented narrative of postwar European protest and opposition movements, this volume offers an innovative, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive perspective on two decades of protest and social upheaval in postwar Europe. It examines the mutual influences and interactions among dissenters in Western Europe, the Warsaw Pact countries, and the nonaligned European countries, and shows how ideological and political developments in the East and West were interconnected through official state or party channels as well as a variety of private and clandestine contacts. Focusing on issues arising from the cross-cultural transfer of ideas, the adjustments to institutional and political frameworks, and the role of the media in staging protest, the volume examines the romanticized attitude of Western activists to violent liberation movements in the Third World and the idolization of imprisoned RAF members as martyrs among left-wing circles across Western Europe.

About this title

About the Authors

Annette Vowinckel received her doctorate from the University of Essen and her Habilitation from Humboldt University in Berlin. She is a specialist in cultural history of the Renaissance and the twentieth century. A researcher at the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam, she has recently published a book on the cultural history of skyjacking.

Marcus M. Payk is currently a Fellow in the Department of History, Humboldt University in Berlin and specializes in twentieth-century German and transatlantic history. He received his doctorate in Modern History from the University of Bochum in 2005 and was awarded a Dilthey-Fellowship for excellent young researchers in the humanities in 2011.

Thomas Lindenberger received his doctorate from the Technical University Berlin and his Habilitation from Potsdam University. He was a research director at the Potsdam Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung and is currently the director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres in Vienna. He has held guest professorships at EHESS Paris, CEU Budapest and Vienna University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0857451065
• ISBN 13: 9780857451064
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 356
• Editor: Vowinckel Annette, Payk Marcus M., Lindenberger Thomas