Between Marx and Coca-Cola : Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960-1980

In the 1960s and 1970s, Western Europe's "Golden Age" (Eric Hobsbawm), a new youth consciousness emerged, which gave this period its distinctive character. Offering rich and new material, this volume moves beyond the easy conflation of youth culture and "Americanization" and instead sets out to show, for the first time, how international developments fused with national traditions to produce specific youth cultures that became the leading trendsetters of emergent post-industrial Western societies. It presents a multi-faceted portrait of European youth cultures, colored by differences in gender, class, and education, and points out the tension between emerging consumerism and growing politicisation, succinctly expressed by Jean-Luc Godard in his 1967 pairing of "Marx and Coca-Cola.".. Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Politics and Culture in the "Golden Age" Chapter 1: Youth Culture and the Cultural Revolution of the Long Sixties Chapter 2: Understanding 1968: Youth Rebellion, Generational Change and Postindustrial Society Chapter 3: American Mass Culture and European Youth Culture Part II: Leisure Time and New Consumerism Chapter 4: Music, Dissidence, Revolution, and Commerce: Youth Culture between Mainstream and Subculture Chapter 5: The Triumph of English-Language Pop Music: West German Radio Programming Chapter 6: Across the Border: West German Youth Travel to Western Europe Chapter 7: Imperialism and Consumption: Two Tropes in West German Radicalism Part III: Political Protest Chapter 8: "Burn, ware-house, burn!" Modernity, Counterculture, and the Vietnam War in West Germany Chapter 9: Youth and Antinuclear Power Movement in Denmark and West Germany Chapter 10: "Youth Enacts Society and Somebody Makes a Coup": The Danish Student Movement between Political and Lifestyle Radicalism Chapter 11: A Struggle for Radical Change? Swedish Students in the 1960s Part IV: Gender Transformations Chapter 12: Between Coitus and Commodification: Young West German Women and the Impact of the Pill Chapter 13: Boy Trouble: French Pedophiliac DIscourse of the 1970s Chapter 14: "More than a dance hall, more a way of life": Northern Soul, Masculinity and Working-class Culture in 1970s Britain Part V: Cultures, Countercultures, Subcultures Chapter 15: Utopia and Disillusion: Shattered Hopes of the Copenhagen Counterculture Chapter 16: Juvenile Left-wing Radicalism, Fringe Groups, and Anti-psychiatry in West Germany Chapter 17: The End of Certainties: Drug Consumption and Youth Delinquency in West Germany Select Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index In the 1960s and 1970s, Western Europe's "Golden Age," a new youth consciousness emerged which gave this period its distinctive character. Offering rich, new material, this volume challenges and moves beyond the easy conflation of European youth culture and "Americanization." It instead sets out to show, for the first time, how international developments fused with national traditions to produce specific youth cultures that then became the leading trendsetters of emergent postindustrial Western societies. This important new study presents a multifaceted portrait of European youth cultures, colored by differences in gender, class, and education, and explores the tension between emerging consumerism and growing politicization, succinctly expressed by Jean-Luc Godard in his 1965 pairing of "Marx and Coca-Cola." In the 1960s and 70s, a new youth consciousness emerged in Western Europe which gave this period its distinct character. This volume demonstrates how international developments fused with national traditions, producing specific youth cultures that became leading trendsetters of emergent post-industrial Western societies.