History: One of the most fascinating aspects of history is what you might call the "domino effect" or the chain reaction. Did the shot that rang out in Sarajevo cause not one, but two World Wars? Did Gorbachev's visit to non-reforming China set in chain the events which led to the Tiananmen Square massacre?
Or, in the case of this book's subject, did the black civil rights movement in the US lead to the upsurge of troubles in Northern Ireland, in the sense that the marches were met by police batons and loyalist mobs, escalating into unending violence?
The Northern Irish movement was directly inspired by the US version: the sit-ins, the placards and slogans, right down to the linking of arms - human arms - and the singing of We Shall Overcome. Think of John Hume as a white Martin Luther King and the rival Black Panthers as an underdeveloped IRA.
Unfortunately, we won't know much about this connection from Kurlansky's book, since he makes no reference to the North except for a one-line aside about the "worsening climate" there (he could have been referring to the weather). This is most unusual as the book is otherwise an exhaustive trawl through the other spots of ferment in this pivotal year, and given that his premise is precisely the way one country's events influenced another. Quite why the North is not included is puzzling. Without being self- centred about it, its eruption brought world headlines and it would go on to become one of the most famous and intractable of disputes. It's also curious given that Kurlansky tends to bring in almost everything else that happened that year (Biafra, disruptions at Frankfurt Book Fair), including the stirrings in Communist countries, which were surely of a different nature. "In 1968," he writes, "a belief that the Soviet bloc was crumbling had been widespread in Western academic circles for a number of years." But is this correct? In fact, the Soviet system had a good 20 more years to run and they could point to the very upheavals and "decadence" of the West in 1968 as proof of their own enduring superiority, especially since many of the protests were left-wing.
Kurlansky's focus is to tell the story of 1968 by alternating back and forth between the different events, leading up to climactic moments such as the riots in Paris and a momentous presidential contest in the US. It is a riveting and absorbing read. Centre-stage, of course, is the US, convulsed by protests, the Vietnam war, and the impending election.
In this way, it has fascinating resonances for the present. Quite extraordinarily so at times, with a Democrat party led by Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy (think Howard Dean) preparing to take on the right-wing Republicans. We also have, again, a Europe wary of American militarism, with the French - as usual - being most critical although, in this case, it is richly ironic given it is only a few years since the French themselves were in Vietnam, and for purely colonial reasons. Having been well beaten out of it, de Gaulle now bitterly lectures the Americans. Kurlansky is good on the arrogance and hypocrisy of the French, including their own protest movement, and on the self-satisfied nature of the protesters - although he may be guilty of some of this himself, as he gets all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the simplicity of those protest years.
It's a partisan account and, in this sense, is more like a call to arms than a heavy analysis. Rather than adding new research, he gives us a fascinating sweep, and throws new clarity on phenomena such as the Black Panthers, the Yippies, and the hunting of Nazis in unreformed Germany. There is also a good sense of how these overarching events influenced each other, which was extraordinary given how much less globalised the world was then, with no 24-hour news services such as Sky or CNN.
The book is thus an ideal crash course for those interested in these formative years and, with perhaps younger readers in mind, the jacket sports a striking, garishly- coloured triptych of a US Marine, Mick Jagger and an athlete giving the Black Power salute at the Olympics. Still, this reader could have done with a further image: that of a besuited John Hume, drenched by a Bogside water cannon, just like the black protesters in Montgomery, Alabama. Except, unlike Alabama, this would go on for so much longer that, 20 years later, another 1968 protester (and Southerner), Bill Clinton, found himself compelled to deal with it.
Now there's a cycle of history.
• Eamon Delaney is an author and journalist