Between Academia and Activism: Revisiting the History of Social Democracy at the Time of the Second International

The last fifteen years witnessed a remarkable revitalization in the field of Second International historiography. This renewed literature put forward different approaches and perspectives, as the interest for the history of social democracy draws on academic as well as political considerations. Whereas an important trend of this revitalization came from studies that focused on social and cultural aspects, this review explores two recent volumes published by North American authors that propose a different, and explicitly political, approach towards the history of social democracy in the years of the Second International.