The Halted March of the European Left: The Working Class in Britain, France, and Italy, 1968–1989

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Matt Myers (Lecturer in History, University of Oxford)

The Halted March of the European Left

The Working Class in Britain, France, and Italy, 1968–1989

Matt Myers (Lecturer in History, University of Oxford)

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English

Oxford University Press
01 May 2025

European history; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; Social & cultural history; Socialism & left-of-centre democratic ideologies

Series: Oxford Historical Monographs

The European left seemed to be in rude health during the 1970s. Never had so many political parties committed to representing the working class been in power simultaneously across the continent. New forms of mobilisation led by female, immigrant, and young wage-earners seemed to reflect the growing strength of the workers' movement rather than its pending obsolescence. Parties and trade unions grew rapidly as a diverse new generation entered the ranks. Why did the left's forward march halt so abruptly?

The Halted March of the European Left shows how the left's defeats after the mid-1970s were not the inevitable result of de-industrialisation or, more precisely, the transition to a globalised and post-Fordist world that abolished the working class as a great historical actor. Choices that were made during a concentrated but decisive moment contributed to the left's lost battles. The British, French, and Italian left managed the shift to a new era by marginalising those groups of workers who had invested it with hopes of social and political transformation. Communist, socialist, and social democratic parties helped disempower the new components of the working class in workplaces, in society, in the political system, and successfully disciplined their traditional working-class supporters. The left encountered a crisis of purpose and identity, a sense of both defeat and lost opportunities, and the dissolution of the idea of a community of fate amongst workers. This book provides a comparative analysis of the left's fragmenting relationship with the working class and a 'feel' for the culture of three leading industrial countries during a traumatic transition of late twentieth-century history. It concludes that decisions taken by the left during the 1970s contributed to the tragic inversion of the expected outcome of that hopeful decade.

By: Matt Myers (Lecturer in History University of Oxford)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 222mm, Width: 142mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 442g
ISBN: 9780198944614
ISBN 10: 0198944616
Series: Oxford Historical Monographs
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 01 May 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction 1: Restructuring the Working Class 2: Political Conflict and Strategic Impasse 3: Intellectual Dissidence and the Privatization of Politics 4: Strike-Breaking and the Rise of Neoliberalism 5: Social Movements and Generational Change Conclusion

Matt Myers is a Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Oxford

Reviews for The Halted March of the European Left: The Working Class in Britain, France, and Italy, 1968–1989

All students of contemporary socialism and the Left will have to reckon with Matt Myers vigorously written and painstakingly researched argument that Socialist and Communist party strategies, and not the end of the historic working class, ushered in the age of neoliberalism. A book that should reorient a long debate. * Charles S. Maier, Leverett Saltonstall Professor Emeritus of History, Harvard University * An important contribution to understanding the historical halt of the European labour movement around 1980, through political class analyses of three decisive strikes, in Britain, France, and Italy. * Göran Therborn, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Cambridge *