A well-known expert and scholar, Annie Kriegel presents a critical analysis of the character of the Communist parties in France, Italy, and Spain, with emphasis on Santiago Carrillo's challenge to present-day Soviet Communism. Most of her work is devoted to the French Communist Party, while Ranney and Sartori have edited the papers of a 1977 symposium dealing with Italy. Participants included Italian Communists pleading the case of the PCI as a democratic party, a view vigorously rebutted by Sartori and by another political scientist, and former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. The two volumes complement each other and may mark the high point of the debate over a phenomenon, the very existence of which has never been universally accepted and now seems more dubious than before. Will Euro-Catholicism take its place?