France: Pining Away for Past Glory

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In 1968 they called him Danny the Red -- a tribute both to Daniel Cohn- Bendit's hair and to his ideology. Today Cohn-Bendit, 41, the onetime leader of a student revolt that shook France to its foundations, is a member of the West German Green Party and an author. His latest project: We So Loved the Revolution, a coffee-table book that takes a backward look at himself and other young European and American radicals of the 1960s. The book is full of pictures and interviews with the likes of Yippie Turned Yuppie Jerry Rubin, now an entrepreneur. Since its September publication in France, the book has sold 30,000 copies and made the best-seller lists. It is being translated into English, Spanish, German and Portuguese and is the basis of a current four- part French TV series.

Why should revolutionary nostalgia sell so well these days? Says his publisher: "Danny is an easy symbol of his generation because he did not renounce his ideals."