Welfare States/Welfare Traditions--Roundtable on Thomas Mcstay Adams' Europe's Welfare Traditions Since 1500: Reform without End.

Welfare States/Welfare Traditions: Roundtable on Thomas McStay Adams’ Europe’s Welfare Traditions since 1500: Reform without End

Three historians will engage the themes of Thomas McStay Adams’ Europe’s Welfare Traditions since 1500: Reform without End (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023). The book presents the evolution of European welfare states as the continuation of a cultural and institutional tradition that took modern form in the early sixteenth century. It describes a process of modeling and exchange that informed European welfare institutions and practice over five centuries. In conversation with the author, the discussants will bring distinct perspectives as specialists and Europeanists to explore the long-term historical commitments that inform what is loosely described as a European Social Model. They will examine with the author: (1) the emergence of an Erasmian conscience in the turmoil of the sixteenth century, invoking the beneficent role of law to protect those in need and promoting the positive human value of work; (2) the transformations of these themes throughout Europe over five centuries; and (3) the quest for a social dimension in the construction of a European Union ." Understanding the historical legacy of Europe’s welfare societies is germane to current debate over social provision in the United States.