May 68' - A Compendium

May 68' - A Compendium
Author: Rene Vienet
Publisher: Bread and Circuses Publishing
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2018-05-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1495639363

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As the 50th anniversary of the events of May 68’ passes, it leaves a familiar, image heavy trail in it’s wake - young street fighting Parisians, earnest but chic looking Sorbonne occupiers, the iconic graffiti /posters : imagery all long since passed into the mythology of pop culture, endlessly recycled and recuperated, stripped bare of real political legacy. Within that mythology, the role of the Situationists has long been contested: underplayed exaggerated, misunderstood. This compendium reprints crucial pieces written by the Situs themselves, helping show May 68’ as a reaction to a profound systemic stasis running deep through mid 20th C capitalism, and to the autocratic, hierarchical, and tradition-bound ruling class that still oversaw it in France. "On the Poverty of Student Life”(1966) was originally printed via appropriated funds when 5 pro Situs were elected to Strasbourg Uni Student Union. It’s searing critique of what the authors considered the miserable, passive consumerism of the modern hipster student was a powerful portent of what was to come: “The real poverty of his everyday life finds its immediate phantastic compensation in the opium of cultural commodities... he is obliged to discover modern culture as an admiring spectator... he thinks he is avant-garde if he's seen the latest Godard or 'participated' in the latest 'happening'. He discovers modernity as fast as the market can provide it:” Possibly the single most important document recording and analysing the events of May 68’ remains “Enragés and Situationists in the Occupations Movement”, written by Rene Vienet, a young pro Situ at the centre of the Sorbonne Occupation. A 60 page, chronological account, at times it unselfconsciously captures the poetry of the revolution they were helping make, but mostly the focus in on the objective, material forces that shaped events after the initial occupation of the Sorbonne. This vital piece is supplemented/supported by contemporaneous ‘Various Documents from May 68’, and retrospective ‘Further Reflections on May 68’ from the Situationist International journal. Slightly more tangentially, ‘Preliminaries on Councils and Councillist Organization’ looks deeper into the proto-revolutionary structures that the Situationists saw at the very core of global post-capitalism in the 20th century, and beyond.

May '68 and Its Afterlives

May '68 and Its Afterlives
Author: Kristin Ross
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2008-11-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226728005

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During May 1968, students and workers in France united in the biggest strike and the largest mass movement in French history. Protesting capitalism, American imperialism, and Gaullism, 9 million people from all walks of life, from shipbuilders to department store clerks, stopped working. The nation was paralyzed—no sector of the workplace was untouched. Yet, just thirty years later, the mainstream image of May '68 in France has become that of a mellow youth revolt, a cultural transformation stripped of its violence and profound sociopolitical implications. Kristin Ross shows how the current official memory of May '68 came to serve a political agenda antithetical to the movement's aspirations. She examines the roles played by sociologists, repentant ex-student leaders, and the mainstream media in giving what was a political event a predominantly cultural and ethical meaning. Recovering the political language of May '68 through the tracts, pamphlets, and documentary film footage of the era, Ross reveals how the original movement, concerned above all with the question of equality, gained a new and counterfeit history, one that erased police violence and the deaths of participants, removed workers from the picture, and eliminated all traces of anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism, and the influences of Algeria and Vietnam. May '68 and Its Afterlives is especially timely given the rise of a new mass political movement opposing global capitalism, from labor strikes and anti-McDonald's protests in France to the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle.

The May 1968 Events in France

The May 1968 Events in France
Author: Keith A. Reader
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1349227021

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The multiple impact of the May 1968 events in France is here reviewed and analysed, initially through a narrative account of the events themselves and then through a systematic survey of the various manners in which they have been interpreted and reproduced in France. This covers successively political, social/sociological, and cultural texts - first-hand accounts along with works by political activists and academic social scientists - before moving to a consideration of fictional works (novels and feature films) dealing with or set during the events.

When Poetry Ruled the Streets

When Poetry Ruled the Streets
Author: Andrew Feenberg
Publisher: Marcombo
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2001-05-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780791449660

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Offers a complete survey of the French May Events of 1968 through narrative, analysis, and documents.

Memories of May '68

Memories of May '68
Author: Chris Reynolds
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2011-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0708324177

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This book charts and analyses the emergence of the conventional representation of the French events of 1968 and argues that the dominance of this narrative, despite its limitations, stems from the convenience that such a consensus provides for those that have been pivotal in shaping the collective memory of this critical moment in recent history.

May Made Me

May Made Me
Author: Mitchell Abidor
Publisher: AK Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2018-04-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1849352992

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Q: “You threw paving stones at [the cops]?” A: “Oh yeah. I had no problem doing that. And I threw marbles as well that we stole from stores. And towards the end we even managed to steal tractors from construction sites and we knocked over trees with them.” The mass protests that shook France in May 1968 were exciting, dangerous, creative, and influential, changing European politics to this day. Students demonstrated, workers went on general strike, and factories and universities were occupied. Before it was all over, children, homemakers, and the elderly were swept up in the life-changing events that targeted bureaucratic capitalism and the staid Communist Party. The French state was on the ropes and feared civil war or revolution. Decades later, here are the eye-opening oral testimonies of those young rebels who demanded the impossible. Published on the 50th anniversary of those momentous events, May Made Me presents the legacy of the uprising: how those explosive experiences changed both the individual and history. “These powerful and moving testimonies create an eye-opening account of the inspiring events of May ’68, which are more relevant for today’s activists than ever before.” —Paul Mason, author of Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future

May '68

May '68
Author: Julie Pagis
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

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Much as in other locations around the world, civil uprising, particularly rooted in the activism of young people and students, plagued France during May of 1968. Massive strikes and occupations succeeded in paralysing France's economy and bringing the country to the verge of a leftist revolution. This book studies the life trajectories of many ordinary protestors during the period, using statistics andpersonal narratives to analyse how this activism arose, its impact on people's personal and professional lives, and its transmission through familial generations.

Prelude to Revolution

Prelude to Revolution
Author: Daniel Singer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 434
Release: 1970
Genre: Paris
ISBN:

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The May Movement

The May Movement
Author: Alain Touraine
Publisher: Random House (NY)
Total Pages: 394
Release: 1971
Genre: History
ISBN:

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The Spirit of '68

The Spirit of '68
Author: Gerd-Rainer Horn
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2008-10-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191562084

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In virtually all corners of the Western world, 1968 witnessed a highly unusual sequence of popular rebellions. In Italy, France, Spain, Vietnam, the United States, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, and elsewhere, millions of individuals took matters into their own hands to counter imperialism, capitalism, autocracy, bureaucracy, and all forms of hierarchical thinking. Recent reinterpretations have sought to play down any real challenge to the socio-political status quo in these events, but Gerd-Rainer Horn's book offers a spirited counterblast. 1968, he argues, opened up the possibility that economic and political elites on both sides of the Iron Curtain could be toppled from their position of unnatural superiority to make way for a new society where everyday people could, for the first time, become masters of their own destiny. Furthermore, Horn contends, the moment of crisis and opportunity culminating in 1968 must be seen as part of a larger period of experimentation and revolt. The ten years between 1956 and 1966, characterised above all by the flourishing of iconoclastic cultural rebellions, can be regarded as a preparatory period which set the stage for the non-conformist cum political revolts of the subsequent 'red' decade (1966-1976). Horn's geographic centres of attention are Western Europe, including the first full examination of Mediterranean revolts, and North America. He placed particular emphasis on cultural nonconformity, the student movement, working class rebellions, the changing contours of the Left, and the meaning of participatory democracy. His book will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in this turbulent period and the fundamental changes that were wrought upon societies either side of the Atlantic.