Revolution is the ecstasy of history. Angelo Quattrocchi, poet, anarchist and correspondent for the Italian newspaper Avanti, was posted to Paris during the events of May 1968. He witnessed the student revolt at Nanterre, which spread to the Sorbonne and then to nine million factory workers. Paris became an enormous battlefield of barricades, burning cars and CS gas. President de Gaulle's riot police publicly informed him that their loyalty could no longer be taken for granted. It was the closes the postwar west was to come to full-scale revolution. In staccato anecdotes, Quattrocchi describes events behind the slogans on the walls of the city: "To Forbid Is Forbidden", "Be Reasonable ... Demand the Impossible," and shows how ideas that had previously been the province only of radical philosophers suddenly became springs of actions for millions. Quattrocchi's account of this "ecstasy of history" is rhythmic, impassioned and unashamedly partisan. Tom Nairn, leftist writer and teacher, provides the ideal counterpoint, with an incisive analysis of the causes and consequences of the May events. Writing in the heat of a student occupation at Hornsey School of Art, Nairn dissects the structural contradictions that conditioned the eruption of `68 and mercilessly exposes the failure of the political organizations to rise to the challenge.

安琪楼·夸特罗其（Angelo Quattrocchi）：意大利无政府主义者、诗人与旅行家。法国1968年五月革命的目击者与参与者。《法国1968：终结的开始》的第一部分“发生什么事了？”是夸特罗宾在当时烽火满地的巴黎街堡战斗中写就的。有评论者认为此为“这个事件的当年最佳报道”。夸特罗其还著有《小孩爱看电视，该怎么办？》

汤姆·奈仁（Tom Nairn）：来自苏格兰的社会主义者，《新左评论》的长期供稿者。《法国1968：终结的开始》的第二部分“为什么发生？”是奈仁在五月革命后的两个月内写就的。这个对五月革命的“第一手”的理论分析至今仍然有效，特别是他对于文化和媒体的敏感在很多方面预知了“后六八的文化转向”。著有《不列颠的分裂》、《民族主义诸面》等书。