Publisher's Synopsis
Those who have so far approached their actors in connection with the history of the international labor movement have mostly found that little has been learned about the relationship between personal ties and political decisions. The focus was on politics; personal relationships took a back seat, and the author of this volume assumes that international social democracy can be understood as a system of overlapping friendship and patronage networks through which information is exchanged, solidarity is practiced and interests are represented. It shows how fundamentally personal and political were mixed. Using an analysis of the correspondence of some social democratic actors from Romania, Russia and Switzerland around 1900, she works out the diverse functions of friendships and networks in relation to the history of the labor movement.
