Search results for ""Author Joachim C Haberlen""

'A rich and readable account of left-wing activism in the West and opposition to Soviet-style communism in the East' Katja Hoyer, The Spectator'A dream, perhaps, but one that still sounds worth fighting for, even beautiful' Stuart Jeffries, The Observer'An ambitious and masterly account of utopian protest in Europe ... Fast-paced, with an eye for telling detail and written with a light touch' Robert GildeaIn post-war Europe, protest was everywhere. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, from Paris to Prague, Milan to Wroclaw, ordinary people took to the streets, fighting for a better world. Their efforts came to a head most dramatically in 1968 and 1989, when mass movements swept Europe and rewrote its history. In the decades between, Joachim C. Häberlen argues, new movements emerged that transformed the nature of protesting. Activism moved beyond traditional demonstrations, from squatting to staging 'happenings' and camping out at nuclear power plants. People protested in the way they d

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'A rich and readable account of left-wing activism in the West and opposition to Soviet-style communism in the East' Katja Hoyer, The Spectator'A dream, perhaps, but one that still sounds worth fighting for, even beautiful' Stuart Jeffries, The Observer'An ambitious and masterly account of utopian protest in Europe ... Fast-paced, with an eye for telling detail and written with a light touch' Robert GildeaIn post-war Europe, protest was everywhere. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, from Paris to Prague, Milan to Wroclaw, ordinary people took to the streets, fighting for a better world. Their efforts came to a head most dramatically in 1968 and 1989, when mass movements swept Europe and rewrote its history.In the decades between, Joachim C. Häberlen argues, new movements emerged that transformed the nature of protesting. Activism moved beyond traditional demonstrations, from squatting to staging 'happenings' and camping out at nuclear power plants. People protested in the way they dressed, the music they listened to, the lovers they slept with, the clubs where they danced all night. New movements were born, notably anti-racism, women's liberation, gay liberation, and environmentalism. And protest turned inward, as activists experimented with new ways of living and feeling, from communes to group therapy, in their efforts to live a better life in the here and now.Some of these struggles succeeded, others failed. But successful or not, their history provides a glimpse into roads not taken, into futures that did not happen. The stories in Häberlen's book invite us to imagine different futures; to struggle, to fail, and to try again. In a time when we are told that there are no alternatives, they show us that there could be another way.

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Text in German. Why was the German working-class movement struggling against the rise of National-Socialism so easily defeated, whereas the French working-class movement, which was numerically and organizationally much weaker than its German counterpart, succeeded in mobilizing hundreds of thousands of workers against the radical right at the moment of a "fascist threat"? To answer this question, Joachim C. Haberlen's study investigates the social and political practices within the working-class movement in Leipzig and Lyon at the end of the Weimar Republic and, respectively, the Third French Republic. At the core of the study are the role of trust and distrust in social and political movements, and the ambivalent consequences of the politicization of the working-class movement within its local context. The study draws on a broad variety of primary sources from archives in Leipzig, Berlin, Lyon, Paris, and elsewhere. Informed by everyday historical approaches, it creates a lively and multifaceted image of workers' lives and grassroots politics in both cities. The comparative approach results in a careful analysis that identifies major differences that help explain the different outcomes of the working-class movement's struggles. Leipzig's working-class movement, the study shows, was characterized by a deep-seated distrust, which was a major impediment for a successful mobilization against the Nazis. Furthermore, the politicization of the local working-class movement not only reproduced the conflicts between Social Democrats and Communists at the rank-and-file level, but also turned politics into a "nuisance" that made many workers turn away from politics altogether. In Lyon, by contrast, workers succeeded in overcoming existing distrust. In addition, the politicization of the working-class movement during the rise of the Popular Front (1934-36) had, at first, an integrative function. Yet, soon enough the overburdening of social practices like strikes with political meaning contributed to the decline of the Popular Front.

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