This book is a succinct history of social democracy in the major states of Western Europe that discusses both the domestic and international factors influencing social democratic politics. It explains why political parties, whose electoral following was rooted in the growing industrial working class, nevertheless failed to become dominant parliamentary forces in their respective political systems. The book concludes by discussing the implication of the social democratic past in Europe for the future of socialist politics in a post-Cold War context.

CARL CAVANAGH HODGE is Assistant Professor at Okanagan University College in Kelowna, British Columbia. He is the co-editor of Shepherd of Democracy?: America and Germany in the Twentieth Century (Greenwood, 1992).