The Meteoric Rise of Student Movements in 1968: Contexts and Characteristics of a Transnational Phenomenon

Abstract

Based on the historical consideration of 1968 as a social, political and cultural phenomen comparable to other moments of the contemporary past, I study the frameworks in which student protests took place, particularly in Western and Southern Europe, and the elements that turned the student 1968 into a phenomenon that crossed political borders. I pay particular attenttion to some qualitative differences between the ways 1968 was experienced in "northern" Europe and in "Mediterranean' Europe, with the diving line of this invisible but tangible boundary running Rotterdam to Trieste. I highlight the anticolonial, third-worldist, anti-capitalist, anti-repressive dictatorial and anti-bureaucratic outlook of student movements in 1968, as well as other factors such as the influence of radical social Catholicism, which I call "the spirit of Vatican II'. In short, I analyze the material and intellectual conditions necessary for radical student activism before, during and after 1968, at the peak time of influence of the transnationally operating New Left.