1968: The Global Revolt

The Wave (1x1)

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Part 1 of this documentary starts with a survey of the economically booming US of the 1960s and charts the growing disenchantment of many young people who had begun to see the American government as a warmonger. The anti-war movement started at the University of Berkeley in California. As the war in Vietnam was taking on disastrous proportions, the military dictatorship in Brazil was suppressing the country’s leftist opposition. In Africa, independence movements often turned into dictatorships. In Western Europe and Japan, local student movements emerged, boycotting the traditional tools of teaching and power and seeking alternative models for society. German students rebelled against old Nazi cadres running their universities. States all around the world faced violent opposition. Widespread coverage of atrocities during the Vietnam War made the US a target of a critical left-leaning young generation that organized itself into a protest movement and swept the world up with its slogans and songs.