The 1960s still loom in the national rearview mirror as a kind of cultural myth. Where did it all come from - the activism, the violence, the drugs, the counterculture, the permissiveness, the radical politics - and what were they thinking? This book answers these questions in a neat cinéma vérité narrative of violence, social conscience, and political and cultural rebellion, tracing the heartbeat of student uprisings with flashbacks between New York, Frankfurt and Paris.