The Global Revolt of 1968 and Northern Ireland

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8091581
AutoresSimon Prince (0000-0002-8292-5319, University of Oxford, autor correspondente)
Ano2006
Volume49
Fascículo3
Páginas851-875
Data de publicação2006-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x06005541
OpenAlexW2139938716
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14

The year 1968 witnessed a global revolt against imperialism, capitalism, and bureaucracy. It was not – as has long been claimed – the start of a cultural revolution that produced greater personal freedom, but the end of the post-war attempt to define a new left. This reinterpretation of '68 as a global revolt rather than the the baby-boom generation's coming-of-age party is based upon recent research at the local level. An examination of Ireland's radical left during the ‘long '68’ is an important contribution to this work, as it was significant as well as small. Contact at congresses and through the media with other leftists enabled Northern Ireland's ‘sixty-eighters’ to conceive of themselves as part of an imagined community of global revolt. They shared similar goals and tactics. Like their comrades on the continent and across the Atlantic, the region's sixty-eighters tried to attract attention and support by provoking the authorities into an overreaction. In a country dominated by the sectarian divide, however, clashes between Catholic protesters and Protestant police officers were always more likely to lead to communal conflict than class struggle. The Troubles is perhaps the most tragic outcome of the interaction of global and local politics that occurred during '68

Bureaucracy · Capitalism · Economic history · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Reinterpretation · Sociology · History · Irish and British Studies · Law