In May 1968 the French nation was shaken to its foundations by a series of student protests that rapidly escalated into a general strike. Yet the immediate upshot of the May events was a massive electoral victory for General de Gaulle and for the constitution of 1958. Logics of Failed Revolt uses the events of May '68 as a historical touchstone for examining the political ramifications for that body of literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytic work known as French theory. It explores the period's central influence within theoretical discourse, tracing the development of 'explanations' for the necessary failure of established modes of revolutionary action and the widespread notion that politics was now a dead end. The author examines the specifically cultural politics operative in the texts of Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous and Jacques Lacan.