FYI
Please come to a book launch with the author,
Daniel A Gordon,
at
Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road , Kings Cross, London N1 9DX ,
UK • shop@housmans.com • +44 [0] 20 7837 4473 •http://www.housmans.com/
On 2nd May 2012; 7 pm, doors open at 6.30 pm
for
Immigrants & Intellectuals: May ‘ 68 and the Rise of Anti-Racism in France
ISBN 9780850366648 £18.95
This book tells, for the first time, the full story of the rise and fall of a cycle of protest movements for the rights of migrant workers from 1961 to 1983.
Based on more than a decade of research in France , including special access to normally closed police archives, it reveals an encounter between two worlds, the immigrant and the intellectual.
Highlighting links to international struggles from Portugal to Senegal , this book considers reactions to the massacre of Algerians in Paris in 1961; uncovers the hidden history of migrant worker participation in the general strike of 1968; shows how activists built crèches for immigrants ‘
children and asks: how did immigrants view the New Left militants who sought to politicize them? It recounts how a hunger strike by a Tunisian activist leader in 1972 sparked a movement which mobilized some of France ‘ s best-known thinkers from Sartre to Foucault, and brought this civil rights campaign into mainstream politics.
After showing how the dreams of ‘ 68 were buried and recycled, Gordon concludes with the legacy of this story for the politics of migration and the politics of protest today in France and beyond.