The ambiguity built into the title of this chapter is intentional. A Third World perspective on 1968 requires a double vision. First, it demands recognition that as idea and reality the Third World was conspicuously present in the events of 1968, not only in the many different areas encompassed by the term “Third World” but also and more importantly in the First (and Second) Worlds; it is reasonable to suggest that the emergence of the Third World both as a challenge to the First but also as a substitute for the Second World of Soviet and Eastern European communism was a crucial aspect of 1968. Second, it enjoins us to recognize the many contexts that shaped the participation of people in the Third World in the events of 1968. This raises the question of whether or not 1968 can serve as a marker in Third World histories in the same sense that it has come to mark a watershed in First and Second World histories and, for that very reason, of the dialectic between the general and the particular in the construction of 1968 as a historical marker.

It is this latter aspect that has priority in the subsequent discussion. Given the immense territory, and even more immense differences, of societies covered by the term “Third World,” which do not lend themselves to comprehensive coverage and certainly defy any one historian's expertise, the discussion is illustrative rather than comprehensive. My selection of those cases where there were significant events in 1968 does not, I hope, produce the misleading impression that 1968 was equally important everywhere in the Third World.