Suchergebnisse

This paper reviews the main twentieth century changes that have shaped the contemporary crisis of identity. After exploring four hurricanes of modernity - total war; the cultural revolution of the 1960s; modernization and globalization; and the rise of the information society -I discuss the decline of trust in civil society. Personal identities once tightly focused on family, friends and neighborhood, are now much looser connections with the emphasis on social networking. The process is one of individualization, subjectivization, and self-realization. Collective identities are experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. ldeologies, associations, mainstream churches and nation-states have lost their mobilizing power. I argue that globalization in a network society offers a possible solution to the crisis. Until recently domestic and international politics, save in times of war, seemed separate worlds. In the twenty first century they form one continuum. Cosmopolitan politics with its advocacy of a global civil society offers not only an opportunity to reconnect individual and collective identities in a new and purposeful way but to respond to the demand for justice worldwide.

"Britain, France and Europe, 1945-1975 offers a comparative history of sharply contrasting national experiences in the aftermath of the Second World War. Perceived as a failing power, post-war France seized the initiative in European construction, gaining ascendancy in Western Europe; Britain became the sick man. How and why did the French outsmart their arch-rivals? Drawing on American, British and French official records, together with private papers and interviews, Anthony Adamthwaite explores the reasons for French success. As well as reassessing Britain's membership bids for the European Community, the analysis evaluates key influences: the mental maps of decision makers; leadership styles; the post-1945 international system; policy making machinery; the 'democratic deficit' in British and French politics; public opinion. Britain's altercation with the Community's French doorkeeper, argues the author, ignored the elephant in the room - the need for a revived entente in the Cold War era. An Anglo-French couple powering European unity could have repositioned Western Europe as partner, not client of the United States. This enlightening study highlights the importance of contingency and individual actors, and will be of great interest to scholars of modern European history."--

A central question in European history is how did a great power pre-eminent in 1918 lie defeated by the same enemy less than 20 years later. Until recently the explanation has been sought in fundamental weaknesses that could only leave the French of 1940 hamstrung and demoralized. Recent studies have challenged that view and now, for the first time, the revisionist approach is displayed in a single volume, both summarizing the research of others and drawing on the author's own work in the archives. The book is about as far from 'dry as dust' diplomatic history as it's possible to get. Its very