Moments of Decision
Political History and the Crises of Radicalism
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- £21.99
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- £21.99
Publisher Description
In this expanded second edition, the radical classic Moments of Decision has been updated more than 20 years since it was first published and received the Michael Harrington Book Award. Reexamining observations made after the fall of communism, Stephen Eric Bronner blends political meditation, philosophical critique, and history lessons to illuminate the monumental crises that shaped the 20th and 21st centuries. A cosmopolitan work that touches on the implications of conflicts ranging from World War I to the Arab Spring, Moments of Decision explores the assumptions of socialist historiography and the character of modernity. In clear, accessible prose, Bronner has revived and revised a seminal work that is ideal for students, scholars, and anyone interested in political history, theory, and international relations.
PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITION:
"To guess about the future Bronner has rightly looked into the past, going back to the first world war and the momentous split in the labor movement. His book is a learned, lively and inevitably controversial contribution to the political and historical debates of our age."
- Daniel Singer, THE NATION
"Stephen Bronner is a distinctive voice on the American left. He combines a deep understanding of working class political history with a passionate interest in devising a democratic strategy for our time, and is willing to take risks in saying just what that strategy should be. Bronner's analysis is both principled and shrewd, unsparing and hopeful. Even where one disagrees with it, one learns."
- Joel Rogers, University of Wisconsin Law School, Editor, POLITICS AND SOCIETY
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In response to the dizzying changes in Eastern Europe, Bronner ( Socialism Unbound ) offers a study of political radicalism in the 20th century, hoping to learn from the past in order to understand the present and future. He also wants to ``set the historical record straight'' regarding the predominantly democratic aims of working-class movements, as distinct from the totalitarianism of the doctrine of a vanguard party. Moreover, he wants to rescue Marx and Engels from totalitarians (followers of Lenin, Stalin and Mao) and reclaim them for democratic socialists. To that end, Bronner has written a brief but spirited polemic, a history of radical movements as seen through the filter of several crises in this century. Beginning with the disastrous divisions in the Second International over WW I, he traces the political causes and consequences of the fall of the Weimar Republic and rise of Nazism; the failure of France's Popular Front; the beginning of the Cold War; the birth and demise of the New Left; and the apparent end of the Cold War. The book is closely argued and incisive; Bronner's writing is methodical and jargon-free, if a trifle humorless.
