A review by paulataua
May Made Me: An Oral History of the 1968 Uprising in France by Mitchell Abidor

4.0

Fascinating oral history of the events of May 68 in Paris that really gets lots of things right, especially how the workers movements and student movements seemed to be two completely different forces with different goals, the workers with their quantitative demands and the students and others with less definable objectives. The book makes the claim that this never really added up to a revolutionary movement, but stops short of actually making sense of what it was. It suggests the ‘failure’ of May 68 by pointing out how all the major social changes that followed, such as women’s rights and the acceptance of homosexuality, came about in other countries without undergoing events like those in France, but it possibly underplays the effect that those events had on the people involved in them and how they had an effect on later developments, both personal and societal. I feel convinced that the events had a much more important effect, and maybe , just maybe, the events played a major role in helping to bring about this age where we are less ready to believe in 'truths' that are thrust upon us as unassailable and in a world that is unchangeable. A good read!