Introduction

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.

Exploration of Political-Cultural Realignment

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.

Europe's Role in Western History

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.