Introduction: The global 1960s: Convention, contest, and counterculture

The 1960s. To invoke the decade is often to invoke the fantasy of a rupture after which the world became somehow irreversibly more youthful, more inclusive, more just. This nostalgic vision is invariably shaped through the prism of the Western world-namely Europe and the United States. Here, baby boomers strained universities to capacity, and youth rose up against the “establishment,” culminating in popular uprisings-notably in France in May 1968 when more than ten million people went on strike. Liverpool’s The Beatles led “The British Invasion” and ushered in the “Swinging Sixties.” The androgynous Twiggy (dubbed “The Face of the Sixties”) represented a new standard for female beauty and modeled the psychedelic fashions of the time. Movies like La Dolce Vita and Lawrence of Arabia captured the imagination of Western audiences, while television beamed white middle-class values into the intimate private sphere.