(Ebook) The Practice of Socialist Internationalism: European Socialists and International Politics, 1914–1960 by Talbot C. Imlay

(Ebook) The Practice of Socialist Internationalism: European Socialists and International Politics, 1914–1960 by Talbot C. Imlay

The Practice of Socialist Internationalism examines the efforts of British, French, and German socialist parties to cooperate with one another on concrete international issues. Drawing on archival research in twelve countries, it spans the years from the First World War to the early 1960s, paying particular attention to the two post-war periods (1918 to the late 1920s and 1945 to the mid-1950s), during which national and international politics were recast. During these years, European socialists operated simultaneously in national and transnational spaces, and the book explores the ways in which these two spaces overlapped. In addition to highlighting a neglected dimension of twentieth-century European socialism, it provides novel perspectives on two related subjects: the history of internationalism and the history of international politics. Scholars of internationalism focus either on state or on non-state actors (INGOs), but socialist parties constituted something of a hybrid: rooted more firmly in national politics than most INGOs, they were also more self-consciously internationalist than state actors. Just as importantly, European socialists sought to forge a new practice of international relations, one that would emerge from their collective efforts to work out ‘socialist’ approaches to pressing issues of European politics such as post-war reconstruction, European integration, and decolonization. While the extent of their success is debatable, the efforts of European socialists to identify distinct approaches act as a spotlight, illuminating obscure yet vital aspects of an issue.