It is a book (1) we have been waiting for. A necessary book for those who were witnesses to the turmoil Liège went through during the 1970s.  A manner of being reminded of the multiple facets of this era of free form gestations and unbridled creativity of which they might have only experienced or perceived but a small part. A necessary book also for the generation which followed, the one born during this era and which will doubtless be happy to finally see the nostalgic evocation of these 'hallowed years' transform itself into information. As it is true that the question of cultural transmission, of figuring out what remains of this spontaneous flux is at the heart of this work.

Three Liège researchers, from the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Nancy Delhalle, Jacques Dubois and Jean-Marie Klinkenberg have joined forces to draft and co-ordinate this work, as 'connoisseurs' in that they were, as far as the latter two are concerned, actors in the turbulent years of the 1970s and took part in the widespread questioning that they brought about. Numerous university based contributors, almost all ULg researchers, and many of whom were also actors of the times, have lent their support to the initiative. Is it for all that an academic listing of the cultural activities and practices which is envisaged by the work? Absolutely not. The authors' common goal is instead to draw out the trends and to analyse a co-ordinated movement. Is it for all that a scholarly book? Absolutely not. It reads as a documented and illustrated chronicle, fed by personal experience, and which cannot at times abandon an inevitable nostalgia which is felt by everyone who lived through the Liègois utopia of the years 1968-1983. What is striking on the other hand is the selective iconography of the book, made up of quite rare documents. The explanation is given by Jean-Marie Klinkenberg: 'We are talking of an era in which people lived through things intensely instead of observing them, photographing them, or archiving them.' The few iconographic documents available were almost all preserved by chance and come from private collections. Everything else has disappeared. As for marking the time boundaries of the era, always arbitrary, they correspond to the years 1968-1983. 'We clearly felt that at the beginning of the 1980s the movement was dissolving, was running out of steam,' declares Jacques Dubois. And it is true that we at that point witness an institutionalisation of culture where organisations replaced individuals and the small 'spontaneous coalitions,' these 'emotional communities' such as 'Blavier's gang', 'Pousseur's gang,' Groupe µ, the Cirque Divers team, that of the Canal Emploi ringleaders…which marked and fashioned the era.

(1)  Le tournant des années 1970 - Liège en effervescence.  A collective work published under the editorship of Nancy Delhalle and Jacques Dubois with the collaboration of Jean-Marie Klinkenberg and essays by Danielle Bajomée, Julie Bawin, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Ludo Bettens, Pascal Durand, Michel Fourgon, Pierre Frankignoulle, Eric Geerkens, Geoffrey Geuens, Tanguy Habrand, Françoise Lempereur, Marc-Emmanuel Mélon, Philippe Schoonbrood, Laura Van Brabant., Bruxelles, les Impressions Nouvelles, mars2010.