In his fantastic, gripping, and haunting book, ’68 (Seven Stories Press), the writer and historian Paco Ignacio Taibo II (aka PIT) surveys the tumultuous upheaval of the ‘68 Movement in Mexico. It makes compelling reading today. He recounts the student solidarity demonstrations that gave birth to brigadismo – the mobile action groups that would incite rallies across Mexico City. There is the retelling of the occupation of schools and the creation of libertarian common spaces based on assemblies. Reference is made to the fragile workers’ committees that emerged in the sectors of electricity, oil refining, and railroads that then faded away. Then there was the shadow of the tanks moving in. The city that the students had roamed was lost in the aftermath of the government massacre of hundreds of students at Tlatelolco on 2 October 1968. Ghosts remain. There are the ghosts of the student dead and suicidal as well as the ghosts of traitors that fed the subsequent “dirty war” (La guerra sucia) in Mexico. The outcome, PIT argues, was a decaffeinated democratic transition in Mexico. How can Mexico’s neoliberal transition to democracy be understood?