Abstract

A French variation of The Communist Manifesto begins by claiming that: «A ghost hounds the world: the ghost of the students». To a great degree it is true: one of the characterizing features' of the 60's has been the sudden growth into socio-political importance of student movements all over the world -a phenomenon limited neither geographically nor to specific issues. Any account of such a phenomenon must explain why it came about when it did, while at the same time identifying its concrete socio-historical determinants. Previous decades have also had their young rebels: the beatniks, the bohemians, etc… But these earliar groups were both small in number and passive in outlook, more inclined to indulge in narcotic «trips» than to directly question the nature of the society in which they lived.