INQ-271 | 1968: Youth in Revolt

Full Title: 1968: Youth in Revolt

Topic Description:

What happened to the western world in 1968? Over the course of 1968 and the next few years, citizens of the United States, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Mexico engaged in challenges to their governments that threatened some of the most dominant politicians of the 20th Century. In every one of these cases, the government struck back, crushed the uprisings and carried on. On the face of it, nothing had changed. But it is clear from the perspective of history that everything had changed. Politics in the west was altered for good. Political life in all of these places became more contested, more transparent and much more the affair of younger citizens. A generation of political leaders cut their teeth on 1968. What lessons did they learn? Why did it happen then, in the way it did?

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: November 2012