The Other Alliance
Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Princeton University Press
Published:23rd Aug '11
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Using previously classified documents and original interviews, The Other Alliance examines the channels of cooperation between American and West German student movements throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, and the reactions these relationships provoked from the U.S. government. Revising the standard narratives of American and West German social mobilization, Martin Klimke demonstrates the strong transnational connections between New Left groups on both sides of the Atlantic. Klimke shows that the cold war partnership of the American and German governments was mirrored by a coalition of rebelling counterelites, whose common political origins and opposition to the Vietnam War played a vital role in generating dissent in the United States and Europe. American protest techniques such as the "sit-in" or "teach-in" became crucial components of the main organization driving student activism in West Germany--the German Socialist Student League--and motivated American and German student activists to construct networks against global imperialism. Klimke traces the impact that Black Power and Germany's unresolved National Socialist past had on the German student movement; he investigates how U.S. government agencies, such as the State Department's Interagency Youth Committee, advised American policymakers on confrontations with student unrest abroad; and he highlights the challenges student protesters posed to cold war alliances. Exploring the catalysts of cross-pollination between student protest movements on two continents, The Other Alliance is a pioneering work of transnational history.
"The Other Alliance takes the protest movements in West Germany and the United States ... as a case study of how activists in different countries shared political ideas and forms of protest an in doing so influenced and inspired each other. But unlike some other analyses, his focuses on the 'exact processes' by which the two movements constructed a 'collective identity'... What emerges from Klimke's study is an impressively nuanced picture."--Hans Kundnani, Times Literary Supplement "Martin Klimke's new study, The Other Alliance: Student Protest in West Germany & the United States in the Global Sixties, represents an important attempt to go beyond vague generalizations about the 'global' to find ways of accessing and analyzing the pronounced interconnectedness that characterized the rebellion of the 1960s... Klimke makes excellent use of a range of sources, including classified American government documents that open up a fascinating perspective on how intelligence agencies viewed the threat of student unrest... [W]e can be grateful for Martin Klimke's excellent study, which represents an important addition to the vast and growing historical literature on the global sixties."--Timothy Scott Brown, Journal of American History "This logically organized, persuasive study of the transnational character of the 1960s student protest movement focuses on the relationship between New Left groups in the US and West German. Klimke, utilizing an impressive array of sources ranging from official archives to oral history interviews, examines the interaction between Students for a Democratic Society and its West German counterpart, the German Socialist Student League, as he makes his case for the significance of a student-led 'other alliance' that emerged in response to the perceived inadequacies and inanities of the official Western transatlantic partnership that evolved after 1945... Klimke's examination of one aspect of the international protest movement that took shape during this era is impressive."--Choice "Klimke brings important new information about international connections that concretizes the often (overly) general discussions of the international student movement... Klimke has produced a valuable addition to the burgeoning literature on 1968. He has contributed to the effort to rescue 1968 from the 68ers and to specify what happened as opposed to what people 'remember.'"--Michael L. Hughes, Central European History "The Other Alliance is a great read. It is an ambitious work that performs the valuable service of forcing us to think in new ways about the sixties as an aspect of globalization. Not only scholars of the sixties, but also those interested in transnational aspects of protest movements will need to take this work seriously. It is a valuable book for scholars well beyond the boundaries of German and American studies. I recommend it strongly, and have already begun to incorporate it into my work."--Lorenzo Bosi, Mobilization "Klimke succeeds admirably in documenting the emergence and complex transnational entanglement of [the] 'other' alliance, using carefully crafted prose to support his exhaustive and painstaking research... The Other Alliance is a bold and exciting work that will remain relevant for some time."--Michael Stauch, H-Soz-u-Kult "Klimke successfully walks a fine line between emphasizing the importance of international connections and recognizing the constraints upon them. This invaluable account will be a springboard for further research."--Nick Thomas, American Historical Review "[A] pioneering book on the student revolts of the 1960s and an excellent work of diplomatic history."--Stuart Hilwig, Diplomatic History "Klimke's account adds nuance to a historiography that has tended to neglect the response of the establishment beyond acts of police brutality."--Quinn Slobodian, German Studies Review "The product of truly prodigious research, The Other Alliance offers an amazingly complex and well-documented examination of the transnational political state of affairs of the 1960s, brilliantly detailing the historical and cultural determinism of the interaction between the student movements in West Germany and the United States in a global context."--Georgia Tres, Canadian Journal of History "[T]his book is a model of groundbreaking scholarship."--Klaus Schwabe, Journal of Transatlantic Studies "Martin Klimke has produced a fascinating narrative coupled with extensive analysis... Klimke's work teaches us that the global consciousness of young people predates the information age, in which we presently live. The seventh decade of the twentieth century clearly deserves further scholarly attention yet future efforts should also focus on other global relationships and their significance. This treatise will be an important source for students and scholars alike, and I certainly look forward to upcoming books by Martin Klimke."--Francis D. Raska, European Legacy "Martin Klimke's impressively researched and well-argued comparison of the West German and the US student protests takes ... transnationalism seriously and explores the many interconnections between those two student movements."--Stefan Berger, Moving the Social
ISBN: 9780691152462
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 539g
368 pages