Japan's 1968: A Collective Reaction to Rapid Economic Growth in an Age of Turmoil

Abstract

In 1967, 1968, and 1969, Japan was wracked by student uprisings that ultimately forced the closure of university campuses nationwide. Japan's student uprisings more or less coincided with the so-called “Global Revolutions of 1968” raging around the world, including (among many others) civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protests in the United States, the Cultural Revolution in China, large uprisings of students and workers in France and Germany, and the “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia. Recent research on 1968 has focused on the common characteristics and the mutually reinforcing or convergent aspects of these many uprisings all around the world.