Hope, terror and youth rebellion

REVIEW Hope, terror and youth rebellion Looking back on the political movements of the ’60s and ’70s is now a fairly well trodden path in the form of fiction, history and memoirs alike. Hari Kunzru’s latest novel, My Revolutions, however, strikes refreshing new ground in that it is written not, as usual, by a participant in those turbulent times. Instead it’s written by a younger author assessing the disappointed dreams of a previous generation for a radically different, liberated world. The tired, mainstream mythology around the ’60s portray the period largely as a quaint revolution in lifestyle and fashion defined by long hair, rock and roll, drug use and the hippie subculture. But the youth radicalisation of that era was first and foremost a genuine social upheaval. It gave birth to a series of powerful mass movements... [read full story]