Dissent in Europe

In 1968, Europe erupted into one of its most turbulent years since WWII. Challenging the post-war order and the hypocrisy of both consumerist western society and the Stalinist roots of the Old Left, students and workers across the continent began a revolution that would be felt for years to come. Across Europe, students went on strike, occupying the universities and forcing them to shut down . Social protests throughout France temporarily paralyzed the French government as citizens and police clashed amid tear gas and Molotov cocktails. In England and Germany, protests against the war in Vietnam escalated into violence and German left-wing extremists bombed a row of department stores in Frankfurt, bringing a new level of brutality to the conflict. Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, citizens fought against Soviet oppression and censorship and the citizens of Czechoslovakia stood their ground as Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, bringing an end to their brief period of political liberalization known as Prague Spring. Although the revolution was not successful, the events of 1968 would fundamentally change the social make-up of Europe.

Books in IUB Libraries
Bourg, Julian.  From revolution to ethics: May 1968 and contemporary French thought. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007.  DC420.B678 2007

Bracke, Maud. Which socialism, whose détente?: West European communism and the Czechoslovak crisis, 1968. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007.  HX238.5 .B73 2007

Brown B., Protest in Paris. Anatomy of a Revolt, General Learning, Marristown (N.J.) 1974  DC412.B878

Feenberg, Andrew.  When poetry ruled the streets: the French May events of 1968. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2001.  DC420.F44 2001

Fraser, Ronald, et al.  1968:  A Student Generation in Revolt.  London: Chatto & Windus, 1988.  LA 186.A16 1988b

Hambourg, Serge.  Protest in Paris 1968.  Hanover, NH:  Hood Museum of     Art, Dartmouth College, 2006.  TR 647.H3465 H36 2006

Koning H., Nineteen Sixty-Eight. A Personal Report, London-Sydney-Wellington 1987.  E846.K66 1987

Kurlansky, Mark.  1968:  The Year that Rocked the World.  New York:             Ballantine, 2004.  D 848.K87 2004

Lumley Robert, States of emergency: cultures of revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978, London, New York 1990 (ed it. Dal ’68 agli anni di piombo, Giunti, Firenze 1998)  DG577.5 .L86 1990

McDermott, Kevin and  Matthew Stibbe, eds.  Revolution and resistance in Eastern Europe: challenges to communist rule. Oxford: Berg, 2006.  DJK50.R48 2006

Passerini, Luisa.  Autobiography of a Generation: Italy, 1968.  Lisa Erdberg,     trans.  Joan Wallach Scott, intro.  Hanover, N.H.:  Wesleyan University        Press, University Press of New England, 1996.  DG 577.5.P38513 1996

Seidman, Michael.  The imaginary revolution: Parisian students and workers in 1968. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004.  DC420.S44 2004

Singer, Daniel.  Prelude to Revolution:  France in May 1968.  2nd ed.     Cambridge, MA:  South End Press, 2002.  DC412.S53 2002

Spender S., The Year of the Young Rebels, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 1969.  PR6037.P47 Y38 1969b

Tarrow Sidney, Democracy and Disorder. Politics and Protest in Italy, 1965-1975, Oxford U.P., New York 1988 (tr.it. Democrazia e disordine. Movimenti di protesta e politica in Italia. 1965-75, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1990)  JN5451.T37