Cover to Cover: Alcide De Gasperi Research Centre Book Discussion Series

• Historical Archives of the European Union
• Department of History
• The Alcide De Gasperi Research Centre

Angela Romano and Federico Romero present their volume analysing the European socialist countries’ strategy of engagement with the West and the European Economic Community in the long 1970s.

In the first event of the ADG's 'Cover to Cover' book discussion series, Angela Romano and Federico Romero present their edited volume European Socialist Regimes' Fateful Engagement with the West: National Strategies in the Long 1970s, a result of the five-year ERC funded project PanEur 1970s.

The book focuses on a time when the socialist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe banked their hopes for prosperity and stability on enhanced relations with the West. Crossing the traditional differences among diverse fields of historiography, it assesses the complex influence of European and global processes of transformation on the socialist elites’ reading of the international political and economic environment and their consequent decision-making. The volume also explores the debate in each country among and within the elites involved in policymaking as they elaborated this strategic view and coped with shortcomings and unexpected turns.

The book, published by Routledge during the pandemic in Autumn 2020, is available in open access: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/68195