Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente

by Suri

In a brilliantly-conceived book, Jeremi Suri puts the tumultuous 1960s into a truly international perspective in the first study to examine the connections between great power diplomacy and global social protest. Profoundly disturbed by increasing social and political discontent, Cold War powers united on the international front, in the policy of detente. Though reflecting traditional balance of power considerations, detente thus also developed from a common urge for stability among leaders who by the late 1960s were worried about increasingly threatening domestic social activism.

In the early part of the decade, Cold War pressures simultaneously inspired activists and constrained leaders; within a few years activism turned revolutionary on a global scale. Suri examines the decade through leaders and protesters on three continents, including Mao Zedong, Charles de Gaulle, Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He describes connections between policy and protest from the Berkeley riots to the Prague Spring, from the Paris strikes to massive unrest in Wuhan, China.

Designed to protect the existing political order and repress movements for change, detente gradually isolated politics from the public. The growth of distrust and disillusion in nearly every society left a lasting legacy of global unrest, fragmentation, and unprecedented public skepticism toward authority.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World History, Politics, Grad School, International Relations, European History

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Chelsea Szendi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only three stars is perhaps stingy here. Suri's thesis - that the internal tension created by extraparliamentary protest worldwide - led to a pact of power, detente, that cut across Cold War enmity - is provocative. It's also probably pretty right. But I couldn't help but feel a little let down that it was almost all high-level political history. There is an incursion into the intellectual scene, sure, but there is something that feels flat and discursive about it all.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

In an interesting blend of international, social, and diplomatic history, Suri argues that detente has important roots in social upheaval and elite backlash in the 60s and 70s. Here's the flow of the argument: in the mid 1960s, the superpowers tried to stabilize the Cold War by eschewing nuclear crises, communicating more, and toning down some of the rhetoric. This created a Cold War binary that a lot of nations were unsatisfied with. At the same time, leaders in France, the FRG, China, Czechoslovakia, and the US tried to mobilize their people with calls to national greatness or appeals to ideology. The citizenry in most of these countries was becoming more educated and urbanized, which raised the potential for organized unrest. When many of these hopes were dashed, and when events like Vietnam threw gas on the social/political fire, mass rebellions erupted in the late 1960s in what Suri calls the Global Disruption. These movements didn't coordinate with each other, but they did see a kinship in each other despite major differences in contexts.

Leaders in these countries were taken aback by these challenges, and they sought to tamp them down by stabilizing international politics through detente. Nixon, for example, wanted to triangulate relations with China and the USSR, putting the USSR on the back foot by aligning with China and forcing it into an easing of tensions. Nixon also sought to gain prestige at home, end the Vietnam War through detente, and take some of the energy out of the sails of social protestors. The USSR was also trying to tamp down rebellion in the Eastern Bloc and gain greater legitimacy at home by getting greater recognition from the US and the West. Suri sees detente as a conservative reaction to social unrest and legitimacy crises in which the great and superpowers of the world stabilized relations at the top to gain prestige, tamp down unrest, and solidify their own power at home. This is a great example of the relatively recent turn to transnational/global history in the study of USFP, and the book is impressive in its methodology and the wide range of sources used.

The issue, however, is that I'm not sure Suri is right. I agree that there were social/domestic roots to detente; it didn't just spring from Henry Kissinger's head. However, by the time detente's major achievements were made in the early to mid 1970s, the wind had already been taken out of most protest movements in the US for largely endogenous reasons: the fracturing of civil rights and other movements, a domestic conservative pushback, alienation from politics because of a lack of change, sheer exhaustion, the deaths of key unifying leaders, and the rise of the "me decade" culture of the 1970s. Because of this chronological mismatch, I think Suri overstates the degree to which detente had domestic roots. He doesn't really talk about Kissinger's theory of international politics, the deep desire of the superpowers to tamp down the possibility of nuclear war, the balance of power games and opportunism that the great powers played, and each power's need to retrench and stabilize international politics after significant foreign policy defeats. Suri could have done a better job integrating that "international" story with the interesting but overstated domestic thesis. Suri also has a chapter on Vietnam where he portrays it as liberal war stemming from development/modernization theories; this is an interesting argument even though I don't really agree, but it seems out of place in terms of the amount of detail he goes into.

Suri also sees detente as a negative because he sees it as part of a conservative attempt to rein in popular political energies. I don't really agree. Not only did most of those energies fade independently of international affairs by the early 1970s, many of them were becoming pretty scary and illiberal (think of all the movements modeling themselves on Che or Mao, two murdering fanatics). I've always been sympathetic to detente: for the US, it allowed a pause in COld War competition to recover from Vietnam, it opened up space for exchange and compromise between the superpowers, it assisted with the world-historical opening of China, and ultimately it probably helped undo the USSR (think about the long-term effects of the Helsinki Accords and of increased Eastern Bloc economic reliance on the USSR). So I think detente was responsible and effective statecraft, but Suri largely ignores this, focusing on a shaky connection between detente and conservative backlash at home.

This book is cool for the wide range of sources used and the effort to do a truly global history that integrates the foreign and domestic sides of policy and politics. It is extremely ambitious and methodologically interesting as well as effectively argued and well written. While I don't totally agree with the argument, I'm glad I read it. Recommended mainly for scholars of the links between domestic and global politics.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suri argued that Détente during the Cold War was largely about keeping challenges, mainly social unrest from below, to existing social order in check, especially after the challenges of 1968. Détente was, on the surface, about stalemate and keeping the world from nuclear destruction, but in fact was also largely about conservative social policies on both sides of the Cold War aimed at suppressing any challenge to those in power. While previously, the Cold War was about the bipolar rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, “junior” countries within the arrangement began to challenge it, fueled by charismatic leaders, such as Charles de Gaulle and Mao Zedong. Détente, Suri says, began to take hold after the charismatic and idealistic visions of Kennedy and Khrushchev nearly lead the world to nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but ramped up as the baby boomer generation entered into colleges on mass and challenged the Cold War order. Vietnam, away from hot zones of Europe, the Taiwan straights, and the Caribbean, was the only hot war allowed to exist as a show of American economic and military might. That war helped fuel existing dissent to explosive levels, combined with other local conditions, to the global rebellions of 1968, before settling into a conservative Détente backlash, which caused activists to withdraw and adjust to new balance of order. De Gaulle and Mao were both forced to flee during risings, which showed the extent that social movements could harm elites unless a new stability was established, which the 1970s set in stone.

Key Themes and Concepts:
-Book narrates interactions between peoples, cultures, and governments.
-Nuclear arms control laid the early foundation of Détente.
-International policy was implicitly set by the need to keep a handle on domestic unrest and challenges, by both the right and the left.
-Iconoclasts gave a language of dissent to rising youth, whose common identity was students.
-Vietnam shattered the imagery of liberal democracy building throw consensus, but also spread to challenge elites throughout the world.

[Craig Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important book taking a global perspective on key issues of 1960s historiography. Suri makes a compelling case that the long-term impact of the tumultuous period was to strengthen conservative forces in both the East and West blocs. Circling around the interactions between the U.S., Soviet Union, China, France, and Germany, he argues that the charismatic leaders of the early decade universally retreated in the face of protests from idealistic youth. It's not quite a comprehensive history of the decade--not nearly enough pages for that task--and readers immersed in the period will argue at points, but it's always provocative, more often than not convincing. Would have liked a little bit more attention to cultural forces, but Suri's basically a diplomatic historian/historian of ideas and he's a master of the detail in his home spheres.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chapter 5 and 6 contain the meat of this compelling argument.

[Maciek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many books describe the international politics of the Cold War in the 1960s; just as many talk of the social upheaval of the era in the U.S. and Western Europe. Virtually, very few, however, are able to tie both topics. In addition, it is rare that a U.S. author can write such a wholesome account of the era while not creating a U.S.-centric account, as other American authors often do. Suri's book is crafted so well that even the Cold War historian who does not normally like to ponder social turmoil of the era will still find the book a fascinating read.

[Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

~topical af~

Swap fear of mutual nuclear annihilation between superpowers for growing threat of ecocide and climate catastrophe;

Swap grotesque imperialist actions in Vietnam, Taiwan, Berlin, and Prague for neoliberal assaults throughout the global South;

Swap East-West, communist-capitalist binaries for divisions between the ninety-nine and the one-percent;

Swap police brutality for police brutality. And while you’re at it, swap Sino-Soviet-American hegemony for Sino-Soviet-American hegemony.

Mass movements are springing up everywhere, like in the 60s, as a direct and deliberate consequence of their respective government’s belligerent foreign and domestic policies. Take a look at what’s happening right now: HaitiRojavaChileEcuadorColombiaLebanonHongKongEthiopiaEgyptSudanVenezuelaCataloniaIraqIranBoliviaFrancePuertoRico, etc.

Everywhere People-power everyday—that’s what is being called for and that’s what is being practiced. We m u s t have a voice. None of this capitalist modernity nation-statism bs.

What world do we want to live in? What about our ancestors? posterity? What kind of life is worth living? (Questions whose responses should derive from everyone, not just those privileged enough to be wasting life on this app.)

May we learn from the past.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

supports historiographical consensus on inextricable relationship between domestic and international contexts. also uses a comparative approach.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presented a global timeline of events of the 1950-60’s that shaped worldwide foreign policies. It was so well done and interesting. I would highly recommend it!

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

95% power. 5% protest. A nice state-focused summary of the Cold War

[Billy · Rating 3 out of 5]

All over the globe, ’68 marked a year of riots that sparked global concern. In France, Germany, China, and America, protest movements worried global leaders about the possibilities of revolution. Jeremy Suri’s Power and Protest argues that these events led to the era of détente, or lessening of global tensions amongst the superpowers and other nuclear powers. In short, he is arguing that domestic strife can influence and shape diplomatic relations. Suri’s argument is wide—and perhaps too wide—but convincing. He argues that intellectuals such as Jean Paul Sarte (France), Alexander Solzeneytzian (USSR), J.K. Galbraith, Herbert Marcuse (Frankfurt School) and Mao (China) published influential works that questioned capitalism. These works were translated into a number of languages and absorbed by would be protesters. Dissent of capitalism was noting new, but questioning the materialism of the post war world threatened cold war consensus. The Vietnam war then acted as the solidifying act, an event that gave dissent purpose and direction. Facing a “global revolution,” governments colluded to quell revolutionary fervor and regain order. They responded with détente, a conservative approach to international relations that stressed the easing of nuclear tensions and warfare.
Critics of Suri point out that correlation does not lead to causation. Because the Prague Spring, the Cultural Revolution, the Chicago Riots of ’68, and French protests happened in close temporal proximity does not mean that they followed a similar pattern. Still, mass media’s ability to connect these global protests should not be discredited. Protests in Czechoslovakia, France, the United States, and elsewhere, were seen around the globe through satellite or video. Television captured these protests in ways that brought them into the homes of common people, diplomats, and presidents alike. What they saw influenced the future of the political groups involved in these movements as well as public opinion home and abroad.

[Frank Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A school book.

Combines a pretty good history of global politics in the 1960s and 1970s with a pretty good description of the worldwide student rebellions of 1968 with the most absolutely unconvincing thesis I've ever read. Suri basically argues that politicians like Nixon and Brezhnev used detente to control radical student movements in their own countries. In 250 odd pages, he presents almost no evidence for this, which is good, because it would probably just get in the way of the rest of the book, which is worthwhile though unsurprising.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think another reader summed this up really well..."This bookforced me to have one of those moments. What? There was a protest movement in other countries? I thought it was only in California." I 100% percent agree that this book made me feel frustrated with how little I knew, but also completly excited me.
Also, whether your a fan of the historical genre or not, Suri's writing style will captivate you.
Great read.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suri's argument (that detente represented a conservative refocusing of state attention on domestic unrest) is mostly convincing, but reading this book leaves one with little understanding of the causes or demographics of the revolutions of '68.

[Josh Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Détente was the result of tacit agreement between the major powers to focus on controlling their own citizens.