When Poetry Ruled the Streets

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

More than a history, this book is a passionate reliving of the French May Events of 1968. The authors, ardent participants in the movement in Paris, documented the unfolding events as they pelted the police and ran from the tear gas grenades. Their account is imbued with the impassioned efforts of the students to ignite political awareness throughout society. Feenberg and Freedman select documents, graffiti, brochures, and posters from the movement and use them as testaments to a very different and exciting time. Their commentary, informed by the subsequent development of French culture and politics, offers useful background information and historical context for what may be the last great revolutionary challenge to the capitalist system.

Andrew Feenberg is Professor of Philosophy at San Diego State University. He is the author of Lukács, Marx and the Sources of Critical Theory; Critical Theory of Technology; and Alternative Modernity: The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Social Theory. He is the coeditor of Marcuse: Critical Theory and the Promise of Utopia (with Robert Pippin and Charles P. Webel) and Technology and the Politics of Knowledge (with Alastair Hannay). Jim Freedman is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario. He has authored or edited many books, the most recent of which is Transforming Development: Foreign Aid for a Changing World.