The sixties, again and again.(American political history)

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, April, 2008 by Weigel, George

Campaigning for the French presidency last year, Nicolas Sarkozy ran hard against what Europeans still refer to as 1968, describing the post-1968 New Left as "immoral" and "cynical" and defining the choice before the French electorate in stark terms: "In this election, the question is whether the heritage of May '68 should be perpetuated, or if it should be liquidated." Evidently, French politics hasn't yet discovered the warm fuzzies of the focus group.

Throughout the Western world, 1968 was a bad year, a moment in which history seemed to careen out of control. It was worse in Europe, and the impact of 1968 there was more profound. In Western Europe, the agitations of 1968 aimed to effect a deep rupture with the past, and if those who took to the Paris...

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