The Other Alliance:
Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties
Martin Klimke

Cloth | February 2010 | $39.50 / £27.95
368 pp. | 6 x 9 | 30 halftones. 3 line illus.

Shopping Cart | Endorsements | Table of Contents
Introduction [PDF]

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.

Martin Klimke is research fellow at the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at the University of Heidelberg.

Endorsements:

"Aptly titled, The Other Alliance rethinks the generational revolt of the sixties era. Klimke brings to life a transnational movement that linked radicals on both sides of the Atlantic to a global struggle for power and justice. Must reading for '68ers and those who seek to understand the history they made."--David Farber, author of The Age of Great Dreams

"The book's execution is impressive and the research is breathtaking: meticulous work in archives, numerous interviews with key figures, and comprehensive readings of the secondary literature. Klimke uncovers all kinds of links between the American and West German student movements; contextualizes these within social movement theory and other models; and teaches readers a great deal about the American and West German New Left and the rebellions of 1968. This book is clearly a labor of immense passion, discipline, intelligence, and insight."--Jeremy Varon, Drew University

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations vii
Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: SDS Meets SDS 10
CHAPTER 2: Between Berkeley and Berlin, Frankfurt and San Francisco: The Networks and Nexus of Transnational Protest 40
CHAPTER 3: Building the Second Front: The Transatlantic Antiwar Alliance 75
CHAPTER 4: Black and Red Panthers 108
CHAPTER 5: The Other Alliance and the Transatlantic Partnership 143
CHAPTER 6: Student Protest and International Relations 194
CONCLUSION 236
Notes 247
List of Sources 325
Index 329

Series:

• America in the World
  Sven Beckert and Jeremi Suri, Series Editors

Subject Areas:

• Political Science and International Relations
• American History
• European History

Shopping Cart:

For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Cloth: $39.50 ISBN13: 978-0-691-13127-6

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Cloth: £27.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-13127-6

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File created: 11/4/2009

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