The Other ’68: A Social History of West Germany’s Revolt

The book is a new, revisionist account of Sixties protest movements in West Germany. It challenges established narratives centring male intellectuals by foregrounding families, private lives, women, and old people. Worked from a wealth of new archival sources, the book argues that ’1968’ was just as much about gender conflict as it was about generational conflict--even if the former was often erased from public memory. The narrative follows three generations of Germans living in the provincial town of Bonn through the turbulent years of the late 1960s. It offers a genuine social history of the period, decentring the story of West Germany’s 68 socially, geographically, and generationally. The five chapters cover the Shah of Iran’s visit to Bonn and Berlin, the role of the Nazi past in framing generational differences, experiences of old people around ’1968’, the female dimension of the protests, and the sexual revolution. The book situates the West German case within the global and West European Sixties and engages with recent controversies on the role of female ’68ers, the origins of new feminist movements, and the sexual revolution.
Originally published in German in 2018 by C. H. Beck (titled Das andere Achtundsechzig: Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte, 978-3406719714), it has been translated into English by Rachel Ward.

Christina von Hodenberg, Director, German Historical Institute London

Christina von Hodenberg is the director of the German Historical Institute London (GHIL) and Professor of European History at Queen Mary University of London. She received her doctorate from Bielefeld university, held faculty positions at Freiburg University and University of California at Berkeley, and won a Humboldt Research Award in 2014. She has published widely on the social and cultural history of 19th- and 20th-century Germany, Britain, and the United States. Her books have explored the role of Prussian judges during the revolution of 1848-1849, the 1844 revolt of Silesian weavers (Germany’s most famous working-class protest), post-1945 political journalism in West Germany, and the impact of television on the 1960s cultural revolution.

Rachel Ward studied Modern Languages at the University of East Anglia and graduated from UEA’s MA in Literary Translation in 2003. Since then, she has been freelance, specialising in history and politics, crime fiction and children’s books. She has previously translated Wartime Relations: Intimacy, Violence, and Prostitution in Occupied Poland, 1939-1945 by Maren Roeger, and The Ambivalence of Good by Jan Eckel for OUP. Her translation of Hotel Cartagena by Simone Buchholz (Orenda Books) won the 2022 CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger award, while Zippel, the Little Keyhole Ghost by Alex RÃ1/4hle (Andersen Press) was a Times Children’s Book of the Year.