In a thoughtful, straightforward paper, rich in detailed case studies, the authors describe a survey of one thousand one hundred ninety-five university students (1971-1973). An attempt is made to understand the psychological makeup of politically radical students in a fashion more objective than that of the highly conflicting analyses appearing in the literature of the late 1960's and the early 1970's. Compared with "liberal" and "conservative" students,

the radicals "scored high on the need for power, low on the need for affiliation, low on impulse control, high on defensive projection." Nearly forty volunteers were given psychological tests and interviewed in depth. Several of these cases are described. The authors, unlike others who have perceived student radicals as a "new breed," find that the interviewees were experiencing classical, recognizable adolescent crises; they can be understood in psychoanalytic terms. We should question our own unconscious motivations if we find any political and social judgments intruding upon our clinical observations.