This book is about two countries, Germany and Austria, whose past illustrates the hopes and achievements of social democracy, as well as the shortfalls and failures. At the end of World War I in 1918, revolutions occurred in both countries, enabling the formation of social democratic republics that enacted a wide range of reforms. Social democracy was crushed by fascism in the 1930s  but following World War II became a powerful force again, not only in Europe but worldwide.

At its best, social democracy has been an impassioned movement for human liberation, achieving such improvements as health care and public education for all, affordable housing, trade union strength and retirement security, social welfare programs, racial and gender equity. At times social democracy has extended self-determination into the workplace also, so that workers become actors in shaping the aims and conditions of their own labor.

Social democracy’s advances in the first half of the 20th century came about, paradoxically, during an era blighted by war, economic collapse, colonialism, and genocide. Although social democrats in Germany and Austria clearly recognized the danger of fascism, the broad left remained disunited and suffered crushing defeats, failing to avert Europe’s “dark times,” as historian Hannah Arendt calls them. In a collection of essays about 20th-century writers and activists, including Rosa Luxemburg and Berthold Brecht, she asks whether their light was the “uncertain, flickering … light of a candle or that of a blazing sun.” Indeed their legacy remains undetermined, as social democracy today struggles to find its way.