Rebel Youth
1960s Labour Unrest, Young Workers, and New Leftists in English Canada
An important look at the young workers and New Leftists who formed an essential – but often unacknowledged – part of the youth movement that changed the country in the 1960s.
Description
During the “long sixties,” baby boomers raised on democratic postwar ideals demanded a more egalitarian society for all. While a few became vocal leaders at universities across Canada, nearly 90% of Canada’s young people went straight to work after high school. There, they brought the anti-authoritarian spirit of the youth revolt to the labour movement. While university-based activists combined youth culture with a new brand of radicalism to form the New Left, young workers were defying their aging union leaders in a wave of renewed militancy. In Rebel Youth, Ian Milligan looks at these converging currents, demonstrating convincingly how they were part of the same youth phenomenon.
Awards
- Short-listed, The Sir John A. Macdonald Prize, Canadian Historical Association 2015
Reviews
...Milligan’s study is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the long sixties, which highlights the diversity and complexity of the era that has heretofore escaped popular memories of it.
- Kevin Brushett, Royal Military College of Canada
A highly readable and important work that brings young Canadians who were in the workforce – rather than attending university – into the conversation about what the social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s were all about.
- James Pitsula, author of New World Dawning: The Sixties at Regina Campus