The Iranian student movement and the making of global 1968

With a few notable exceptions, studies of the late-1960s global student protests focus on European and North American movements, barely noticing the contribution of Asian and African students. ¹ Addressing this historiographic lacuna, this chapter revisits the Iranian student movement’s role in the making of “global 1968.” Organized in the Confederation of Iranian Students/National Union (CISNU), these young anti-imperialist activists created and sustained the longest-lasting and most effective Third World student movement of the 1960s. Committed to a radical internationalist perspective, CISNU was also the decade’s most truly transnational student organization, its activities spanning Europe, North America, and the Middle East. ²