James E. Cronin

The World the Cold War Made: Order, Chaos, and the Return of History

An examination of the Cold War from the creation and structure of the postwar settlement to the eventual coming apart of the post war order in the 1980s and early 1990s. James Cronin explores the creation and structure of the postwar settlement and the eventual coming apart of the postwar order in the 1980s and early 1990s. Cronin argues that the current state of the world must be understood against the backdrop of the postwar order that until recently governed, prevented or distorted political and economic change.

What’s Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times

In What’s Left of the Left , distinguished scholars of European and U.S. politics consider how center-left political parties have fared since the 1970s. They explore the left’s responses to the end of the postwar economic boom, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the erosion of traditional party politics, the expansion of market globalization, and the shift to a knowledge-based economy. Their comparative studies of center-left politics in Scandinavia, France, Germany, southern Europe, post–Cold War Central and Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States emphasize differences in the goals of left political parties and in the political, economic, and demographic contexts in which they operate. The contributors identify and investigate the more successful center-left initiatives, scrutinizing how some conditions facilitated them, while others blocked their emergence or limited their efficacy. In the contemporary era of slow growth, tight budgets, and rapid technological change, the center-left faces pressing policy concerns, including immigration, the growing population of the working poor, and the fate of the European Union. This collection suggests that such matters present the left with daunting but by no means insurmountable challenges. Contributors Sheri Berman James Cronin Jean-Michel de Waele Arthur Goldhammer Christopher Howard Jane Jenson Gerassimos Moschonas Sofia Perez Jonas Pontusson George Ross James Shoch Sorina Soare Ruy Teixeira

Behind the Lines: East London Labour, 1914-1919

Based on the Science Programme of Study, this booklet covers all the main concepts required for Key Stage 4 and GCSE examinations. The information is grouped into the Strands given in the revised National Curriculum and is presented in the levels covered by Foundation, Intermediate and Higher level examinations. Pupils are encouraged to: underline key phrases; list the meanings of words in bold; match statements; complete diagrams; perform calculations; and give extra examples.

Labor Insurgency and Class Formation

The modern working class is not especially noted for its optimism or idealism. Indeed, the industrial proletariat may well have pioneered in the adoption of those secular and cynical life-styles and values that have come increasingly to pervade twentieth-century society and culture (Hobsbawm, 1978a). This makes it all the more surprising, then, to rediscover the deep feelings and high expectations with which Europes workers launched the greatest wave of strikes in their history just after World War I. For a brief moment, the apocalyptic hopes of the left-wing socialists and the fantastic fears of the forces of order seemed about to come true: Soldiers deserted en masse and turned against their officers and their governments; workers in almost every industry struck for unprecedented demands; workers’ councils were established from Limerick to Budapest (Kemmy, 1975-1976). And if Lenin and Trotsky, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Gramsci were wrong in their optimism, they were no more misguided than their panic-stricken opponents, such as Churchill, Lloyd George, the diplomats at Versailles, and the various generals and police commanders charged with controlling and suppressing the volatile crowds of urban workers and discontented ex-soldiers (Mayer, 1959, 1967).

The Peculiar Pattern of British Strikes Since 1888

Strikes have become so common in modern society that they seem to be a normal part of the social landscape. This is perhaps one reason why historians have tended to ignore them and their history. Upon reflection, it is indeed surprising how little attention the history of industrial conflict has received from historians. Of course, certain dramatic events, like the General Strike of 1926 or the London dock strike of 1889, are relatively well chronicled, but even these are sorely under-analyzed. There are not even competent narratives of other episodes, like the explosion of militancy just after the First World War; and we know still less about the persistent dynamics of strikes throughout British industry. In this respect, historians lag well behind other social scientists who have been studying industrial strife for many years, but whose work is unfortunately limited by their frankly ahistorical or even anti-historical approach. It is time for historians to remedy this deficiency, and this essay is intended as a first, very small effort in that direction.2

The Marshall Plan and Cold War Political Discourse

The Cold War was not only a geopolitical alignment of states, but also a confrontation of rival social systems. Within each bloc it structured economic systems and constrained politics. In closing off certain options, however, the Cold War opened up others and nurtured political cultures and rhetorics that fit within the framework of Cold War politics. This paper examines the way the framework of the Cold War affected political culture in the West by reviewing who and what were excluded and who and what were encouraged. The conclusion, though tentative, is that prior work has focused too narrowly on the exclusions imposed by the Cold War political order and neglected the opportunities opened up, particularly in the center and center/left of the political spectrum, and the creative political work done there. The Marshall Plan thus needs to be understood as a critical moment when the Cold War, its constraints and opportunities, became real to Europeans.