European socialism has of course its main roots in the 19th century, though in a sense the Left as we know it may be said to have begun with the French Revolution. This book opens with the centenary of that revolution, in Paris in 1889, when socialists and Marxists from many countries gathered to put the pieces together again after the collapse of the First International. Among the signatories to their manifesto were William Morris for England, Kier Hardie for Scotland, Wilhelm Lieb-knecht for Germany, Viktor Adler for Austria, etc. What we would now call welfare statism or social security was prefigured in Bismarck's Germany (though he introduced it primarily to kill socialism, and social unrest, with kindness) and some Papal Encyclicals about the turn of the century took on a new, socially conscious tone and trend. However, one of the first nations in Europe to create something like a genuine, modern-style welfare state was Sweden in the 1930s - and it did so on the basis that capitalism was not the natural enemy to the working man, but part of the overall social balance. The troubled history of the Left in France and Spain is brought out, and the progress, or regress, of the various leftist parties since the second World War is traced in detail - at times, perhaps, rather too much detail. With over 900 fact-crammed pages, this book is not light reading, but it is a valuable study and reference guide.