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To: H-1960S@H-NET.MSU.EDU Subject: Simpson on Suri's _Power and Protest_ Brad Simpson's response to Jeremi Suri The mark of an important work of history is the discussion it generates and the impact it has on the future work of the field. Judged by the first criteria, Power and Protest is already an important contribution to debates about the origins and meaning of the global upheavals of 1968 and detente. It will doubtless be judged important by the latter criteria in coming years. Readers interested in more detailed comments are urged to read my review (Brad Simpson. "Review of Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente," H-Peace, H-Net Reviews, September, 2003). There is certainly much to praise about this book, especially the connections it draws across national boundaries and among seemingly disparate social, cultural, political and diplomatic forces to demonstrate "how policies such as détente evolved from truly diverse, and often unintended, influences" (263). In the interests of enlivening the discussion, however, I will summarize the criticisms I offer in my review (and expand on one). First, Suri's focus on unrest in the great powers obscures the truly global scope of protest during this period - which extended to dozens of countries, including Japan, Senegal, Bolivia, India and (particularly) Mexico and which was motivated by similar sets of concerns - unintentionally contributes to what scholar Tariq Ali has termed the writing of "1968" as a Western construct, with China as a counterpoint. Second, Power and Protest treats the upheavals of 1968 as primarily a revolt against the Cold War system of politics, though as Immanuel Wallerstein and others have demonstrated, these were simultaneously revolts against the failures of "old left" anti-systemic movements entrenched in power in both post-colonial and advanced industrial states. These were world systemic revolts, not just Cold War upheavals. Third, Suri pays insufficient attention to political economy. Steps taken by the great powers to restore international order after 1968 everywhere marched hand in hand with measures to stave off economic decline. Nixon's dismantling of the Bretton Woods economic system, which dramatically accelerated the process of global economic integration, and China's turn toward enmeshment in the world economy are in this respect events of equal (and perhaps greater) long-term impact as detente. Fourth, while I am persuaded by Suri's wholly original argument about détente as a counterrevolution move aimed a both international and domestic control, I am less persuaded that this sufficiently explains the degree and character of political disengagement after 1968. The upheavals of 1968 were led by youth, but subsequent political withdrawal was more widespread. The breakdown of Bretton Woods and the accelerating global economic integration that followed marked the beginning of a period of slowing growth in the world economy, of long-term decline in the political and economic power of organized labor, and of retreat from social democratic reform measures in many parts of the world. There is no bright line between the impact of détente and these other, related forces in shaping the dynamics that Suri describes. Finally, I see the glass after 1968 as half full, not half empty. Where Suri sees cynicism and withdrawal, I see the rise of what might be termed (paraphrasing Daniel Rogers) the second great age of international social politics. The New Social Movements emerging in the late 1960s and 1970s (witness the rise of the Greens in Germany, the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil, or the contemporary anti-corporate globalization movement) were no less concerned with government policy than their predecessors. These movements, however - which drew inspiration, tactics, and even vocabulary from the movements of 1968 - were less focused on seizing state power than in transforming political culture and the politics of everyday life, often rejecting traditional organizational patterns in favor of more anti-authoritarian tendencies. Moreover, public disillusionment with state power since 1968 has created enormous political space for the international human rights movement, to give but one example, to subject the internal practices of states to criticism regardless of ideology. Global civil society is unquestionably far more organized than in 1968 (even as the forces arrayed against them are far more powerful), and disparate movements more than ever view themselves as local participants in a global struggle for social justice. The point is not to dismiss Suri's argument, which I find mostly persuasive, but to suggest that the meaning and legacy of 1968 is more dynamic, even contradictory, than his account would suggest. Others on the H-1960s discussion list will doubtless have far more substantive responses on these topics. Brad Simpson Assistant Professor U.S. History and Foreign Relations Idaho State University
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