1968: Radical Protest and Its Enemies

1968 saw an extraordinary range of protests across much of the Western world. Some of these were genuinely revolutionary?around ten million French workers went on strike and the whole state teetered on the brink of collapse. Others were more easily contained but had profound, longer-term implications: terrorist groups, feminist collectives, and gay rights activists can all trace important roots to 1968. Bill Clinton and even Tony Blair are, in many ways, products of that year.