unexpected token index.js

[nikrb]

Working on windows7 from a dos box, node v6.3.1.
Just learning react so out of my depth really - hoping for a gentle introduction to jwt with auth0. Followed the tutorial to first run. react-auth-server starts fine, but after sparking up browser top level server tells me:

Module parse failed: c:\projects\nodet\reactAuth\src\index.js Unexpected token

This is the line it refers to:

ReactDOM.render(<Root history={browserHistory} />, document.getElementById('app') );

I don't see the problem so I cloned this repo and ran that and saw the same error.
thanx for your time.