When and how did the major social democratic parties perceive, understand, and interpret the crisis of post-war economic equilibrium? What solutions did they develop to address the crisis, and what alternatives did they weigh against each other? This book investigates the impact of globalisation on the politics of European social democracies. Focusing on the 1970s, it examines the responses that social democrats proposed in the face of the crisis of the Keynesian compromises that had accompanied the economic growth of the initial post-war decades. The author also describes their attempts to devise alternative solutions for dealing with the globalisation processes that reshaped national sovereignty and Europe's place in the world. Drawing on research conducted in many European and American archives, the author offers an original interpretation of the crisis of social democracy and the alternatives to the global rise of neoliberalism.

Michele Di Donato is a lecturer in Contemporary History at the Roma Tre University in Rome, where he teaches International History of Peace and History of the Digital Revolution. He is also chercheur associé at the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po, in Paris.