ABSTRACT
Today it is widely recognised that the 'long 1970s' was a decisive international transition period during which traditional, collective-oriented socio-economic interest and welfare policies were increasingly replaced by the more individually and neo-liberally oriented value policies of the post-industrial epoch. Seen from a distance of three decades, it is increasingly clear that these socio-economic and socio-cultural processes also found their expression at the level of national and international political power. The contributors to this volume explore these processes of political-cultural realignment and their social impetus in Western Europe and the Euro-Atlantic area in and around the 1970s in the context of three agenda-setting topics of international history of this period: human rights, including the impact of decolonisation; East-West détente in Europe; and transnational relations and discourses. Going beyond the so-called Americanisation processes of the immediate postwar period, this volume reclaims Europe's place – and particularly that of smaller European nations – in contemporary Western history, demonstrating Europe's contribution to transatlantic transformation processes in political culture, discourse, and power during this period.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |92 pages
Human Rights
chapter |18 pages
The Politics of Meaning
chapter |20 pages
Confronting the Greek Military Junta
chapter |16 pages
Beyond the ‘Helsinki Effect'
part |80 pages
East-West Détente
chapter |18 pages
Changing the European ‘Front System'
chapter |20 pages
Anticipating European Détente
chapter |20 pages
Programmed for Arms Control?
part |88 pages
Transatlantic Relations and Discourses