The legacy of 1968 continues to animate discussion on all sides of the political spectrum, often in manners as unexpected as they are bizarre: during the 2007 French Presidential campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy blamed soixante-huitards for the excesses of financial speculation and capitalism, sparking an angry reaction from much of the left. As we approach 1968's fortieth anniversary it is likely that much more ink will be spilt discussing its impact. Historians have so far left 1968 to political and cultural commentators. Yet to understand the events of May it is essential to situate them in a much wider historical context. 1968 was not only French, nor was it limited to that famous year, rather it was part of a much wider cycle of protest that crossed national and cultural boundaries. Taking these themes, and drawing on a vast secondary literature in several languages, Horn's book charts the genealogy of this cycle across two continents, providing an overview of social and political protest over three decades.

Horn begins by looking at cultural currents emerging in both sides of the Atlantic during the 1950s that provided the intellectual roots of 1968. He surveys both fringe intellectual circles and their influence on larger icons of popular culture, from Brando to the Beatles. Together these left their mark on a generation that has been miscast as rebels without a cause. More politically active than generally acknowledged, the cultural and social critique of the beat generation laid the groundwork and shaped the radical contours of the more overtly political rebellion of the second half of the period. This more engaged attitude began taking shape in the USA where students took the first rebellious steps during the Freedom Summer and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. These were the ‘initial inspiration behind the rise to prominence of western European radical social movements’ (p. 60). Horn sets about demonstrating the influence the US experience had on students across the Atlantic: the Leuven Vlaans protests of 1966 over the use of Flemish language at the university were explicitly modelled on the sit-in tactic, which can be traced to the early civil rights movement, and to Berkeley. In turn, French student leaders looked up to the veterans of Leuven, who were on hand in Paris during March 1968 to advise on tactics and organization. Horn convincingly shows the international nature of the emerging movements, with activists in constant contact, exchanging ideas and experiences and drinking from the same sources, from Marcuse to Brando.

Horn does not want our perspective limited to student activism. One view of labour activism in this period sees it simply as the reaction to full employment and taking advantage of the students' contestation to put forward traditional material claims. Against this, Horn argues that many of the demands of factory workers – particularly in southern Europe – were qualitatively different, aiming at a radically different society and employing tactics and ideas borrowed from the student movement. By the 1970s these ideas were being developed and carried by a myriad of new and far left organizations, whose genealogy Horn charts. This alternative project for society, in particular experiments with participatory democracy in factories, neighbourhoods, and universities, is for Horn the key to the meaning of 1968. For Horn, despite the erosion of most of the material and cultural gains of those struggles over the last decades, this date stands with special significance alongside 1848 and 1871 as ‘the latest instalment in a long series of unpredicted and unpredictable popular insurrections which have … attacked privilege, autocracy, and hierarchy in the name of justice, equality and self determination’ (p. 238), perhaps a ‘great rehearsal’ (p. 235).

Throughout Horn uses less-well-known examples to back his points, looking at student protest in Belgium, alternative culture in the Netherlands, or charting the genealogy of new left organizations in Spain. This strategy not only takes the reader beyond the familiar narratives of France and Italy, but also serves to reinforce the wider point Horn makes about how interconnected these events were across Europe and, to some extent, the United States. This wide-angle lens also reveals important variations in the intensity and characteristics of the protest cycle between northern Europe and the United States on one side and ‘Mediterranean Europe’ on the other. Horn demonstrates that Spain, Portugal, Italy, and to an extent, France, were the countries where the ‘horizon of a different way of organizing social life shone most brightly’ (p. 228).

While the greatest contribution of Spirit of '68 is to bring Portugal and Spain to the study of social protest in the long sixties, highlighting how ‘things heated up more decisively south-west of a line drawn from Antwerp to Porto Marghera’ (p. 231), it is less convincing in providing an explanation for these differences. Horn admits as much, stating a preference to narrate ‘what happened and how it happened’ (p. 231). But can an analysis of the period really be complete without at least engaging with wider structural arguments? Economic and social transformation may not provide all the answers. Indeed, one could be persuaded of Horn's contingency-based approach, but it would require a more extensive discussion of the debate than is provided here. It is also disappointing that the editors chose not to include an itemized bibliography, a more comprehensive index, or even a list of acronyms that would help guide the readers through and make the most of Horn's contribution. Nevertheless, these criticisms should not take away from the book's contribution to the historiography of the period, bringing to the fore the international nature of 1968. The twenty years focused in this book were crucial in shaping contemporary politics and society, yet the historical profession is only just beginning to turn its attention to the period. Horn's book will certainly guide many researchers and students to some of the crucial questions.