Which Socialism, Whose Detente? ― West European Communism and the Czechoslovak Crisis, 1968

At the very time when Czech leaders were experimenting with alternatives to the Soviet model of socialism that led to the Prague Spring, says Bracke (modern European history, U. of Glasgow), western communist parties, particularly in France and Italy, were mounting a credible challenge to the injustices of capitalism; but when the crisis came, solidarity between the two movements that could have spawned a new world withered under the gaze of their respective superpower masters. In order to explain the parties' continued adherence to the Soviet-dominated communist world, she looks at their international loyalties and orientations, party identity, domestic strategy, and responses to the Czech revolt of 1968-69. Distributed in the US by Books International. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)