What happened in the years following World War II to create a democratic revolution in the
western half of Europe? In Western Europe's Democratic Age Martin Conway provides an
innovative new account of how a stable durable and remarkably uniform model of parliamentary
democracy emerged in Western Europe--and how this democratic ascendancy held fast until the
latter decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide range of sources Conway describes
how Western Europe's postwar democratic order was built by elite intellectual and popular
forces. Much more than the consequence of the defeat of fascism and the rejection of Communism
this democratic order rested on universal male and female suffrage but also on new forms of
state authority and new political forces--primarily Christian and social democratic--that
espoused democratic values. Above all it gained the support of the people for whom democracy
provided a new model of citizenship which reflected the aspirations of a more prosperous and
aspirational society.
