Book Description
In The Sixties, Terry Anderson tackles the question of why American experienced a full decade of tumult and change, whose reverberations and consequences are still being felt in
America
today.
Always appreciated for its brevity, wit and captivating style, The Sixties enters its third edition with expanded coverage of the most interesting and important events, people and movements of the Sixties.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent look at the 1960's.......2007-07-27
This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.
Terry H. Anderson did an exceptional job in his book delineating how a myriad of causes and movements got started and were conducted throughout the 1960's. Politically, the sixties were the most turbulent decade in America's history. Anderson took eight years to meticulously research and write a most informative book, explaining the chain of events that took place beginning in 1960 with a lunch counter sit-in at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, and ending with the end of the Vietnam War. This was not an easy task, considering many of the different movement organizations were not well organized, had no membership lists, and relied on small underground newspapers that were not published on a regularly scheduled basis. Anderson wisely noted that one can look back on the decade and glean from it much good for society that is still with us today; such as, the improvement in civil rights for minorities in America, and an awareness to improve the environment. One can also find social ills spawned by the decade that still plague American society today such as, the pernicious use of illegal drugs, and the sharp rise in teen-age pregnancy rates. Anderson took a different approach than most other historians who researched the sixties. He did not look at the decade from the standpoint of the leaders of the various movements, nor did he focus his attention on movement organizational history. Instead, Anderson's book is more of a national study of the sixties. In his approach, Anderson actually traced the chronological development of activism as it swept across the country, and how different movements allied with one another and/or became outgrowths of preceding struggles. In addition, he explained how activism spawned a completely new counter culture near the end of the decade. Thus, Anderson's book is an extremely useful social and political historical guide to the 1960's.
Anderson astutely traced how activism started with the struggle for civil rights that college students joined in the South. The sixties was also an age of television, and students were disgusted by the injustices and bloody violence against Blacks that they witnessed in news stories on television. Anderson noted that this was the catalyst that caused many White students to leave the safety of their college campuses, and travel down south on Freedom Rides to help Blacks fight the inequities of the Jim Crow laws. This activist desire to change America's status quo swept up both coasts, taking hold at elite universities where students created and joined liberal organizations. Once men started to go off to fight in Vietnam in 1965, activism started to change in two ways. First, besides just being involved in the civil rights struggle, activists took on the new cause of also demonstrating against the war. Secondly, activism spread to all the liberal cities across the country with large universities, including America's heartland. Although Anderson found that the New Left ideology came from many different influences, it was the ideas espoused in the Port Huron Statement, which typified many activists' dreams for how they wanted to transform American society.
In December of 1961, Robert Haber a University of Michigan student and president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), along with other members of a steering committee, understood that the organization needed a manifesto to express its political and social ideals. In June of 1962 at a campsite in Port Huron Michigan, 43 SDS members and a few other activists spent five days debating a draft manifesto written by Tom Hayden, a student at the University of Michigan and editor of its newspaper. What eventually emerged was the Port Huron Statement, which examined "American politics, economics, racism, and foreign policy; the nuclear issue; the role of students; communism; and the themes and values of SDS" (62). The first line in the statement embodied the reason why students in the sixties took to becoming activist. "We are people of this generation bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit." Anderson's research indicated that many activists believed the manifesto's significance was far reaching. The Port Huron Statement repudiated all the socio-economic and political values of the 1950's. It also proposed a new idealism that Hayden claimed was a bit to the left of the Democratic party for the sixties such as, advocating "social programs to fight poverty, establish national health care, help family farmers, and develop equal educational opportunities" (63). By the 1972 Democratic Party convention, many of the ideals of the Port Huron Statement found their way into the party platform. They were placed there by a plethora of minority delegates from various movement streams that had finally attained recognition in a major American political party. "Compared with 1968, the ratio of female delegates at the 1972 convention tripled to almost 40 percent, blacks tripled to 15 percent, and those under the age of 30 soared from 2 to over 20 percent" (397). They nominated the most liberal candidate in the party's, Senator George McGovern, who was soundly defeated by President Richard Nixon in the election.
In conclusion, although many movement activists took the loss of the 1972 election as a bitter defeat of their sixties idealism, Anderson astutely proved that activism did not die in 1972--it took a slower more peaceful pace. New activist movements, more recently termed "pressure groups," owe their birthright to the movements and activists of the sixties such as, Gray Power, a movement of senior citizens that was formed to advocate for their demands. The recent and intense focus on "global warming" is certainly an outgrowth of the sixties activists' concerns for the protection of the environment. Finally, Anderson's book showed that although various sixties movements such as the SDS, Hippies and Yippies may have disappeared, activism is a part of the lifeblood of both of America's political parties. Since the sixties, Americans have been more receptive to questioning socio-economic, political, and religious institutions.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history, Civil Rights history.
Time Line.......2007-06-13
This well written book covers one of, if not the most turbulent change riddled decade in fairly recent history. Readers will follow the development of the hippies and the splinter group, the Yippies (Youth International Party); the assassinations of public figures and the growing unrest on campuses and the outside world at large.
Sixties fashion and culture are also discussed. The music of that decade changed to reflect the times. 1960-1963 still had the 1950s influence and many girl groups emerged during this period. Folk was on the rise and Pete Seeger; Peter, Paul & Mary; Bob Dylan; the Kingston Trio and many other folkies were becoming more musically vocal against war and societal ills.
In 1964 the Beatles arrived in America and during 1963-64 the Beatle influence was resounding around the world. By 1965 to the decade's close, many groups, the Beatles included experimented with different styles of music and sang of the then current issues, e.g. anti-war songs. Stephen Stills of CSN/CSNY fame and prior to that, of Buffalo Springfield fame sang the 1967 Anti-War Anthem "For What It's Worth." The decade that started out seemingly innocent (1960-63) and evolved into a wonderful era of excellent music; cool cars like Falcons and Coronets and closed with a successful moon voyage and music festivals such as the Newport Jazz Festival and Woodstock (both 1969) is nicely covered in this book.
Slanted.......2002-03-17
Since I was a child in the 1960s I am intrigued by the political processes of that decade; by the civil rights movement, Viet Nam, and the three presidents of that decade. I have read a number of books and was looking forward to reading The Sixties. I was disappointed. Mr. Anderson tilts his approach and inevitable editorial comments too far to the left and leaves the reader with the sense that the book had a political agenda rather than the book being an effort to provide an objective rendition of one of the more critical decades experienced by the United States. He writes very well; but there were times that the bias in favor of hippies, campus protestors, etc., was just too much to take. I have the benefit of sitting in "judgment" of the sixties (the decade, not the book) with total objectivity since I was only a kid at the time and based on all of my reading this book is simply too biased to the left to be taken seriously. I would certainly not have high school or college students read it if the purpose is to give an accurate historical perspective on the sixties.
Great Review of the 1960's.......2000-04-05
When I first had to read this book for class I thought that it would be bad. After I read it I saw that it is a great book. The author looks at the 1960's in stages and covers virtualy every bit of that time period. He makes it fun to read about this time and it is a very scholaly look too. All in all I give it 5 stars and wish I could give it more.
Amazon.com
The author was elected president of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963, and he brings an insider's perspective to bear on the turbulent whirl of political, social, and sexual rebellion we now call "the sixties." Gitlin does a nice job of integrating his first-person recollections with a broader history that ranges from the roots of 1960s revolt in 1950s affluence and complacency to the movement's apocalyptic collapse in the early 1970s--a victim of its own excesses as well as governmental persecution. His lucid summary of the complex strands that intertwined to form the counterculture is essential basic reading for those who don't know the difference between the Diggers and the Yippies. --Wendy Smith
Book Description
Say "the Sixties" and the images start coming, images of a time when all authority was defied and millions of young Americans thought they could change the world--either through music, drugs, and universal love or by "putting their bodies on the line" against injustice and war.
Todd Gitlin, the highly regarded writer, media critic, and professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, has written an authoritative and compelling account of this supercharged decade--a decade he helped shape as an early president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and an organizer of the first national demonstration against the Vietnam war. Part critical history, part personal memoir, part celebration, and part meditation, this critically acclaimed work resurrects a generation on all its glory and tragedy.
Customer Reviews:
A memoir from a 60's revolutionary .......2007-07-27
This was required reading for a graduate course in American history. Todd Gitlin's "The Sixties: Years of Hope and Days of Rage" is Gitlin's first hand account of the revolutionary air surround the 1960's. Gitlin was the president of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) until 1969. Through his book Gitlin is able to describe the feelings of social unrest and dissatisfaction among baby boomers during the 1960's. Gitlin recounts the inner workings of the SDS organization and the political infighting and offshoots which developed as some members became more radical and others became more conservative.
Gitlin's title, "Years of Hope and Days of Rage" exemplify the feelings of America's college students and generation of young adults during the 1960's. Gitlin describes the 1950's as a drab and unremarkable time when Americans were content to be materialistic and conformist. Although there were some poets, musicians, writers, and philosophers who were making headway towards social rebellion, in Gitlin's opinion, the 1950's were characterized by America's "genial deadhead" president Dwight Eisenhower.
Gitlin describes some of the inspirational figures and their contributions which began in the 1950's. He attributes much of the intellectual beginnings of rebellion to the "Beat" culture of the 1950's. Inspirational figures like James Dean and Marlon Brando in teen dramas like "Rebel Without a Cause" exemplified dissatisfied youth in the post World War II era. Jack Kerouac's poetry challenged the politics of the Cold War and made appeals for civil rights for Affican Americans. Rock n' Roll music with its African American beats and became a way for youth to rebel against their parents. An interesting insight which Gitlin contributes is the invention of MAD magazine and its contribution to the counterculture of the late 1960's Gitlin describes how MAD was one of the few publications which lampooned both mainstream culture and counterculture. In a time when people were scared by anything which was deemed to be unproductive to society or subversive, MAD magazine provided a sense of humor to the Gitlin describes his interest in politics had begun with his first year as a Harvard undergraduate, the Cuban Missile Crisis was the spark which began many of the first college campus demonstrations. Gitlin and other "New Left" students were aghast at the idea of nuclear war being waged over Cuba. They believed that the Kennedy administration had pushed the Soviets too far towards nuclear war and that Kennedy should take a softer approach towards U.S.-Soviet relations. Unwilling to engage in nuclear war at any cost, "New Left" activists were determined to change America's political and social landscape.
Students of the New Left believed that America was too materialistic, racist, and militaristic and did not follow the principle of free speech. Gitlin describes that the New Left activists were disenfranchised by the "old liberals" and new dealers who did not have the political will to demand civil rights for African Americans and defend the rights of American communists against anti-communist conservatives. Although the election of John Kennedy had signaled the arrival of a new generation of liberal politicians, New Left activists disagreed with Kennedy's policies towards the Soviet Union and Communist containment overseas.
Gitlin's book describes the feelings which he and others felt during the 1960's. Those who had lived through the Great Depression and the World War II were content with the new wave of goods and security which the 1950's had to offer. Many for the first time had the money and resources to enroll their children in college. Gitlin claims that his generation was not content with the hypocrisy of the U.S. government's policies towards segregation and free speech. Baby boomers had been raised to believe in the ideals of the constitution and the bill of rights however, they felt that these principles were not being practiced.
Gitlin joined the SDS in 1963 and became their president shortly after joining. The SDS became heavily involved in protests for civil rights on college campuses as well as joining African American activist's demonstrations in U.S. Southern states. The SDS engaged in public debates, demonstrations and marches for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. The SDS participated in famous demonstrations at the University of California Berkley and the infamous Democratic National Convention demonstration in Chicago.
During the late 1960's, the SDS began descending into disagreement and criticism from within their own organization. Some SDS members wanted to use violence in their demonstrations; this was criticized by Gitlin and others as being too radical. The lingering question of whether or not to profess support for Soviet and Maoist style communism was raised. Some believed that the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong should be forgiven for their acts of violence against the Vietnamese people because they were committing these acts as a response to American aggression. Gitlin and others believed that it was hypocritical to not hold U.S. leaders and Vietnamese leaders to the same morale standards. Eventually, the SDS disbanded in early 1970 after different leaders of SDS offshoots like the weathermen began participating in bombings and other violent demonstrations against military and other installations.
Gitlin ends his book by describing the events which followed the disintegration of the SDS. Gitlin signals the disbanding of the SDS as the end of the true 1960's revolutionary spirit. SDS members and other revolutionaries became tired of the political infighting and the lack of cooperation from government representatives. According to Gitlin these former revolutionaries embraced new ideals and new forms of spirituality and were diluted in the popularity of the hippie movement during the early 1970's. Gitlin claims that the rising popularity of Buddhism and new religious sects like the Hare Krishnas showed that many were losing faith in the movement and were turning to a higher power or spirituality to cope.
Gitlin criticizes the absurdity of some of the radical movements which came from the late 1960's as being crazy and farcical. Gitlin gives the examples of Patti Hurst's kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army and the activities of Charles Manson's group. The use of drugs became recreational rather than a tool for philosophical and spiritual experimentation. In the end the radical movements which were aimed at changing America as a whole was broken up into single issue interest groups. Feminists, Black Power activists and anti-Vietnam demonstrators focused on their own issues of interest rather than focusing their efforts into a national movement of progress.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history.
gitlin.......2006-12-06
THE 1960's in some respects was a decade like any other: a fixed span of time filled with otherwise disparate events. But ''The Sixties'' also came to mean something more: a style, a mood, a spirit of youthful rebelliousness with its own marketable aura of excess, adventure and innocent, shoot-for-the-moon idealism. Once that spirit was spent, as Todd Gitlin writes in ''The Sixties,'' a compelling new firsthand account of the era, the decade quickly ''receded into haze and myth,'' leaving behind only a few ''lingering images of nobility and violence,'' of charismatic martyrs and mobs in the street, ''a collage of fragments scooped together as if a whole decade took place in an instant.'' Today when pundits debate a possible resurrection of the 60's, they usually have in mind a superficially similar pastiche of trends, from paisleyed fashion and renewed evidence of dissent on campus to well-publicized displays of political conscience by popular rock stars.
Mr. Gitlin's ambitious effort to cut through the nostalgia and myth surrounding the 60's takes an unusual form. Working, as he puts it, ''at the edge of history and autobiography,'' he has written a wide-ranging narrative that oscillates between the first and third person, incorporating both new research on key episodes and potted histories of folk-rock music, hippies, the origins of the women's movement and so forth.
What is important in the book - and what makes it required reading for anyone who wants to grasp the youthful spirit of the time - is the author's highly personal chronicle of the rise and violent collapse of the New Left. Without false sentimentality, he re-creates the political odyssey of the radicals of his generation, as well as his own role in that odyssey.
The New Left from Inside by Not a Searching Account.......2004-10-04
The Sixties is a vivid account of a turbulent era by one of the leaders of the "New Left" who played an important role in the anti-war movement. The book's qualities and flaws both flow from the author's knowledge that Gitlen has of many pivotal events and personalities that give the bok its intimacy but also lead him to hold the leaders of the New Left less culpable for some of the negative aspects of the era than a writer with a broader perspective might. In general, Gitlin portrays much of the radicalism of the anti-war movement and the New Left as a loss of innocence rather than a dedicated plan to accomplish the goals of the Old Left - "participatory democracy" or radical egalitarianism drawn from Marx while distancing themselves from Stalinism and identification with the Soviet Union. Gitlin covers the origina of the New Left, the Civil Rights movement and the development of Black radicalism, the growth of the women's movement and the sexual revolution, the joining of the radical left and the counterculture and the collision of these elements with the "silent majority" of more conservative Americans that made the era so tumultuous.
Useful, but not to be regarded as an introductory text.......2004-08-24
In writings about the 1960s in the US, Gitlin offers the reader a rare combination of both the perspective of a major player in the New Left at that time, and as an astude political commentator in his own right. There are, however, deficiencies in regarding the text as a good academic history of the period, as other reviewers have noted.
My particular research, and reason for reading this book, relates to the demise of SDS, and in discussing this, Gitlin frequently talks in greater detail about personalities rather than abstract, but vital, political fact. Indeed, on several occasions the author goes as far as to declare his personal dislike for several of the Weatherman leaders on the grounds of their political differences. Certainly not the stuff of academic surveys.
Perhaps best taken and used as a well-written and historically precarious yet valuable biography, rather than as some kind of definitive text of the 60s. Contains full notes and index, but no bibliographic essay.
Gitlan sets the standard.......2004-05-17
In Gitlan's "Years of Hope, Days of Rage" Todd Gitlan set the standard for analysis of the Sixties and the Sixties Generation. His view, though from the perspective of an SDS leader, speaks to a much broader audience, and generates the first book of its kind on the movement era generation.
A seminal work of classic dimenstions, Gitlan captures the essance and essentials of what it meant to grow up in the Sixites. The life and times, the fever and excitement. He does himself a disservice though in not broadening the discussion to race relations which engineered the velocity of the movement and determined its cutting edge.
Timothy Fitzgerald
Customer Reviews:
1968: The Year of the Counter-Revolution.......2005-02-02
I will keep this very brief because there are so many avenues to examine this book and I offer only one.
The reason to read this masterwork is because Witcover posits that 1968 might have been the year of the counter-revolution rather than the great liberal near miss that others, like Jack Newfield, have contended.
After all of the RFK myth-making and all of the old liberal romancing about a dream stolen from us that year (full disclosure: I am a liberal) is dispensed with one thing remains, how can we explain why a 61.1% victory for LBJ in 64' turned into 42% for Hubert Humphrey in 1968? Something was amiss on the political left in 1968 and it wasn't RFK and MLK's murders alone but a deeper shift in the public's view of the Democrats and what they could offer a nation in transition. Look no further than now: 37 years of conservative politics and still counting! If 68' was the year that should have been then where have the Democrats been for all those years? Where are the dynamic news ideas??? Where is the liberal legacy? While Reagan may have been a "great communicator," nothing made Nixon and both Bushes so downright appealing (except, perhaps, their alternatives?)! The fact is, the Democrats lost their voice and their way that year because their best spokesmen either died or discovered their ideas just did not fit into an America sick of riots and protests. When will the Democrats awaken from the timidity they've adopted since?
I recommend this book for the varied perspectives Witcover brings together to discuss how so pivotal a year has shaped our politcs to this day. There is no romance or myth-making here, just hard questions asked and hard answers considered.
Five stars.
A year of unprecedented disappointment and heartache.......2002-12-29
You've no doubt heard of that phrase, "Born under a bad sign". Well, how about born in a bad year? That's the circumstances underlying your humble reviewer, but it didn't take Jules Witcover's 1968-The Year The Dream Died, to make me figure that my year was a rotten vintage.
Witcover points to the Kennedy assassination in 1963 as the point where things began to sour. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan, future Senator of New York, then assistant secretary of Labour said in the wake of JFK's death, "We'll laugh again. It's just that we'll never be young again."
That whole disaster of a year that was the third straight year of U.S. involvement in Vietnam was also a presidential election year, during which Democratic disunity and third party candidate George Wallace gave Richard Nixon a new address--1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It also didn't help matters for Hubert Humphrey that his hands were tied in his election bid. He couldn't actively criticize LBJ, who was concentrating on conducting the war.
But the two events that spelled the death of optimism were the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The latter's death is covered in a chapter aptly titled "Murder of Hope." It figured. The nation still hadn't completely healed after the JFK assassination and the murder of these two figures served to scar the nation even more.
Nixon, Agnew, Johnson, Sirhan Sirhan, and Lt. William Calley were some of the dark forces at work that year, but the most ridiculous by far was General Curtis LeMay, that lunatic who seriously thought of using nukes in Vietnam and embarassed George Wallace, who tapped him to be his running mate without foresight.
My Lai demonstrated how brutally insane the situation in Vietnam had become. How could American soldiers actually contemplate massacring 567 unarmed civilians, when in World War II, they were considered heroes?
Other events covered: the riots in Chicago, the Pueblo incident in North Korea, the Prague Spring, the presidential campaign, and the student protests that inflamed universities.
Each chapter represents a month of that dreadful year, and at the beginning of each chapter is a brief timeline of what else occurred, be they deaths of famous people, e.g. Helen Keller, or opening days of key films e.g. Yellow Submarine.
However, at the end, Witcover argues alternative scenarios. Had RFK lived, he would have taken the Democratic nomination AND the White House, ended Vietnam, and worked with MLK to heal the racial divide in the country. Or if Eugene McCarthy had decided to endorse Hubert Humphrey earlier in the race, Humphrey would have defeated Nixon. All of this and more is soberingly reviewed in a thorough coverage of that fateful year.
A Perceptive, Insightful & Entertaining Book About 1968!.......2000-06-16
This book is a must-read for anyone who lived through these fabled and troubled times and is willing to endure Witcover's often emotional and always gripping recreation of the events of that fateful year. For those of us who were involved and are nostalgic about the people, hopes, and aspirations we remember from those times, it is difficult to resist peeking between the covers of any book written by Jules Witcover, a well-noted journalist and author who was on-the-scene as a national correspondent as the cataclysmic events of the sixties in general (and 1968 in particular) transpired. Although it was sometimes personally painful to re-experience by way of Witcover's Technicolor prose style about events that I either participated in or was acutely associated with, it is also humbling and encouraging to discover the degree to which he has accomplished this effort with such terrific accuracy, verve, and perspective.
Too often today one reads neo-conservative revisionist accounts of the sixties written by bow-tied authors who were likely so busy squeezing prepubescent pimples in the boys' room mirror of their local junior high schools in 1968 to really have understood what was going on or what it meant. Thus, they write essays simple-mindedly equating 50s style bohemianism with the beliefs, lifestyles, and perspectives of the counterculture, or promulgate the erroneous notion that the sixties youth revolution was a simple coda of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, or that it's the aftermath of the so-called "new-left" cult of permissiveness that is primarily responsible for the breakdown in contemporary American culture. Such silly, superficial & self-serving analysts of the sixties social scene would do well to immerse themselves in tomes such as this to gain a better sense of the times before launching into ignorant and self-serving diatribes.
The sixties defy such easy, unsophisticated, and facile explanations, and it is difficult to now faithfully recollect the various individual elements of those fractious times without a quite careful, deliberate, & objective search. Many of the conditions for better understanding are present in this book. Witcover describes the month-by-month progress of the year with excruciating detail and a unique sense for how to mix various seemingly unrelated events and characteristics of a particular moment to engender the faithful recall of its tone and flavor. He slowly & carefully recreates the stage for our understanding of how the social, economic, and political sensitivities of millions of Americans with different perspectives & beliefs collided into cultural conflict, and how the collective hopes & dreams of many Americans for a better nation were nearly destroyed beneath a flood of violence, deception and trauma associated with the events of the year.
1968 was a year of great pitch and moment for this country, a moment in time when the social fabric of the country was nearly torn apart, and it was indeed a tragic year in the sense that so much of what started out as positive, hopeful, and energetic ended as being negative, discouraging, and dissolving. It was, as Charles Dickens observed about a different revolutionary period, "the best of times and the worst of times", it was a time when, for even the briefest of moments, the social, economic and human possibilities of this country hung in the balance, when a certain indescribable electricity hung in the air, and when we thought we might just be able to turn this troubled and troubling world around. Then it crashed back to earth. Jules Witcover describes this year of such hope and despair as well as I have read to date. Read it and enjoy!
The politics of a pivotal year in U.S. history.......2000-05-12
"The Year the Dream Died" is probably the best and most comprehensive account yet of the 1968 presidential election. Nineteen sixty-eight was a strange and terrible year in American history, a year in which we endured the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, an escalating war in Vietnam, riots in the cities, the quixotic campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and George Wallace, chaos at the Chicago Democratic convention, and finally Richard Nixon's rise to the presidency.
Witcover is a veteran political reporter, and this book focuses heavily on U.S. politics rather than on the events of the world at large. There's a lot of day-to-day detail on what the candidates did and said, and it sometimes becomes tedious. On the other hand, Witcover pays relatively little attention to other interesting developments around the world, such as the progress of the war in Vietnam, the Prague Spring, the student rebellion in Paris, and popular culture. It was a great and important year for popular music, yet the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and the Rolling Stones get only a very brief mention. Rather than the grand "Revisiting 1968 in America," the book's subtitle should have been something specific to politics, like "Revisiting the 1968 Presidential Election."
Although Witcover provides a generally balanced portrait of each of the men at the center of national politics in 1968, Bobby Kennedy is clearly his favorite, and like so many other commentators, he can't resist speculating about how much better the world might have been if Kennedy had survived and been elected president. On the other hand, McCarthy comes across as an otherworldly pied piper who somehow managed to captivate the nation's youth and a handful of its intellectuals, despite having little interest in campaigning, or indeed in the presidency itself. Humphrey is a bland and ineffectual figure caught in the shadow of Lyndon Johnson, regularly failing to seize opportunities to score political points but somehow coming from far behind Nixon to lose the election by only a small margin. Witcover gives Nixon credit mostly for clever image-making and keeping a lid on his darker side, without really exploring Nixon's broad appeal to the American people.
In the last chapter of the book, Witcover offers a kind of post-mortem on the 1968 election, quoting from interviews with participants across the political spectrum from Tom Hayden to Patrick Buchanan, and from commentators like Arthur Schlesinger, William Bennett, Richard Goodwin and Taylor Branch. It's the best chapter in the book, and should be required reading for any serious student of the 1960's. Its key point is that the 1968 election represented a conservative backlash against the various forces of dissent and disorder that had begun to flourish in America, the beginning of the conservative ascendancy that dominates American politics to this day.
The politics of a pivotal year in U.S. history.......2000-05-12
"The Year the Dream Died" is probably the best and most comprehensive account yet of the 1968 presidential election. Nineteen sixty-eight was a strange and terrible year in American history, a year in which we endured the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, an escalating war in Vietnam, riots in the cities, the quixotic campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and George Wallace, chaos at the Chicago Democratic convention, and finally Richard Nixon's rise to the presidency.
Witcover is a veteran political reporter, and this book focuses heavily on U.S. politics rather than on the events of the world at large. There's a lot of day-to-day detail on what the candidates did and said, and it sometimes becomes tedious. On the other hand, Witcover pays relatively little attention to other interesting developments around the world, such as the progress of the war in Vietnam, the Prague Spring, the student rebellion in Paris, and popular culture. It was a great and important year for popular music, yet the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and the Rolling Stones get only a very brief mention. Rather than the grand "Revisiting 1968 in America," the book's subtitle should have been something specific to politics, like "Revisiting the 1968 Presidential Election."
Although Witcover provides a generally balanced portrait of each of the men at the center of national politics in 1968, Bobby Kennedy is clearly his favorite, and like so many other commentators, he can't resist speculating about how much better the world might have been if Kennedy had survived and been elected president. On the other hand, McCarthy comes across as an otherworldly pied piper who somehow managed to captivate the nation's youth and a handful of its intellectuals, despite having little interest in campaigning, or indeed in the presidency itself. Humphrey is a bland and ineffectual figure caught in the shadow of Lyndon Johnson, regularly failing to seize opportunities to score political points but somehow coming from far behind Nixon to lose the election by only a small margin. Witcover gives Nixon credit mostly for clever image-making and keeping a lid on his darker side, without really exploring Nixon's broad appeal to the American people.
In the last chapter of the book, Witcover offers a kind of post-mortem on the 1968 election, quoting from interviews with participants across the political spectrum from Tom Hayden to Patrick Buchanan, and from commentators like Arthur Schlesinger, William Bennett, Richard Goodwin and Taylor Branch. It's the best chapter in the book, and should be required reading for any serious student of the 1960's. Its key point is that the 1968 election represented a conservative backlash against the various forces of dissent and disorder that had begun to flourish in America, the beginning of the conservative ascendancy that dominates American politics to this day.
Book Description
Unlike other works, America in the Sixties looks at the era from the perspective of new leftists, liberals, and conservatives, providing readers with the opportunity to see this seminal decade more fully and richly than they could before. It includes the manifestos of both the Students for a Democratic Society and the Young Americans for Freedom, the most prominent radical and conservative student groups of that era, as well as the words of prominent liberals and moderate Republicans, such as Hubert Humphrey and Dwight D. Eisenhower. In addition to selections by the well-known individuals of that era, such as Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden, it contains pieces by figures often associated with other times, like the Reverend Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan, and Strom Thurmond. Seeking to immerse readers in the decade's key issues in a balanced manner, it includes President Johnson's, General William Westmoreland's, and the AFL-CIO's defense of the Vietnam War as well as Dr. Benjamin Spock's and Paul Potter's criticism of it. The book covers the civil rights movement, Vietnam, the counterculture, and the women's movement. It looks at some of the 1960's most memorable moments, from the Cuban missile crisis and President Kennedy's assassination to the moon landing and the New York Mets' World Series victory in 1969. A statistical appendix, with data on the economy, the cost of consumer goods, trends in popular culture, and important legal developments, complements the documents.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Overall Resource.......2000-03-28
While this book covers a popular topic, it is an excellent source of primary resources from the time -- such as speeches -- divided into important topics, such as Women's Liberation, The Great Society and Vietnam. Gathering information on the topics included from all perspectives (right, left and center) can often be difficult -- never mind all in one book! The appendices include poll results and a statistical profile of the 1960s. The book also contains a good index.
This book is wonderful as it gathers the ideologies of the 1960s into a book that both students can use and adults can enjoy, and that the materials are mostly primary sources. This alone sets it apart from many other books about the decade.
Book Description
With remarkable speed, the Sixties have gone from lived history to mythology. They remain alive in our culture in a manner different from any previous era. At the dawn of a new century, we are still debating the issues that emerged during that decade, still living in the conscious aftermath of its events and transformations. This collection looks back at the Sixties, attempting to understand the issues of the day on their own terms and to think about their meanings in today's world. Alexander Bloom has gathered ten original essays, each of which explores the gulf between history and myth regarding a central characteristic of the Sixties. Topics covered include civil rights, the student movement and the New Left, the Vietnam War, the antiwar movement, gay rights, the counterculture, and the women's movement. Long Time Gone dispels myths about the Sixties and constructs an accurate vision of the past and an understanding of its impact on the modern world. It is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking deeper knowledge of this incredible decade and its continuing influence on American culture.
Customer Reviews:
Things Were Turned Around and Upside Down Then........2006-09-21
Growing up being picked on by a bully because he was 'smart,' Rigby of Pocatello, Idaho, led an upsetting and sad existence. The Sixties were hard on everyone but, most particularly, the sensitive, bright young students during the turmoil which was forced into their existence. No one could escape the horror. Not only was it devastating emotionally and mentally, but physically as well. Rigby had to endure numerous beatings by a dumb neighbor boy from a wealthy family. Money is not everything in this life. It won't buy you scruples, intelligence or morals. You may inherit the iltellect part from your parents, though it is possible to overcome poverty by appreciating good teachers at school and church. You have have to learn the ethical part of life from church, but watch out for the hypocrites who don't practice what they preach.
Rigby's family were overly religious and placed him in a Catholic school where he clearly did not fit in. Like me, he left home at seventeen to spread his wings and learn about the world outside his small existence. Now is the hour to right wrongs, not keep repeating the same old practices. When you pick on someone you think is not your equal intellectually or in status, you only demean yourself and your parents, who should have taught you some principles. If you haven't learned it by the time you're in your forties, it's almost hopeless to think that you will ever change.
The hymn as sung by Ernie Ford, "Now Is the Hour" refers to your entrance into heaven. If you've been a hellion on earth, don't expect God to forgive and forget your transgressions at the last minute. In San Francisco, Rigby found a whole new world deficient in morality. Needless to say, young Rig had a lot of transition in store to grow into a new being full of hope for his future. It's not my choice for a son to go for his coming-of-age regeneration.
All small towns are not like Pocatello (we lived in a good one at a Methodist college), and no other state is like Idaho. He was lucky to have left behind an unhappy childhood young enough to change for the better into a fulfilled adult. He was very lucky. Some men refuse to grow up and learn that equality and tolerance for others who are different is necessary to get along with others. When their "hour" comes to face St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, they will have to account for how they treated their fellow man or woman. We all reach that reckoning in the end. For some, it's a new beginning.
Customer Reviews:
this is a Great Book about a Great Time ~ and takes you.......2006-08-20
Right Back to the 60s and John Kennedy and the promise of it all ~ fascinating You Are There...
a book asks us to stop living our own lives in order to learn about someone else's...
that's a lot to ask if you have a good life! even so, hours spent reading Remembering America will be some of the Best Time You Ever Spent...
thanks Richard Goodwin for writing this ~ and for being who you are and playing the part you have contributed to your time ~
1960's Democratic speechwriter and husband of Doris Kearns Goodwin.......2005-11-15
I thought this book was great!!! A real behind the scenes look at the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in the early 60's. Mr Goodwin graduated number one from Harvard Law School and clerked for Felix Frankfurter. Goodwin penned some of the most memorable speeches of the decade and coined phrases such as the Alliance for Progress and the Great Society. He witnessed LBJ at his best, (Civil Rights), worst (Vietnam paranoia) and hilarious, an on the toilet meeting with LBJ and swimming naked in the White House pool with LBJ and Bill Moyers. He grew disillusioned with Johnson's war in Vietnam and left the administration in 1965. He was an intimate of Bobby Kennedy and worked for both him and Eugene McCarthy in 1968. The interesting thing about this book is how much relevance it has today with the war in Iraq. A president from Texas, low approval ratings, congressional investigations, and a closed and paranoid White House. Some things never change.
Washington Insider.......2004-08-09
Goodwin was very close to many of the major political figures of the 60's, and it shows in his book. He gives insights into the men who ran the country during that decade of change, and helps to introduce the reader to the men as they really were, not necessarily who they seemed to be. I found Goodwin to be a very truthful author, which is important to me.
Goodwin is very much a free thinker, often taking actions that he feels are "right", rather than those that would be best for his career. I found this refreshing, and maybe this is more of Goodwin remembering how things should have been rather than how things really were, but I have found no evidence to refute his claims. He presents everything in a thoughful way, rather than a dry recounting of facts.
A note on the tone of the book: If you can't stomach liberal politics, then this is not the book for you. Goodwin wanted to change the world, and that world would have been one laden with liberal policies. Conservatives may end up beating themselves over the head with this book. You have been warned! :)
A Definitive Insight into the 60's.......2000-03-11
Richard N. Goodwin gives a detailed analysis on of the most intriguing and eventful era's in U.S. history. His personal account and experience with the most powerful leaders was strikingly fascinating. The book begins with a brief description of his childhood. From Goodwin's Anti-Semitic dilemmas to his scholastic achievement that lead to his admission to New York's Columbia University. After his graduating at the top of his class at Harvard Law School,he received a clerical job working for a Supreme Court justice. To the justice's disgusts, Goodwin decides to work on a presidential campaign for then Mass. Senator, John F. Kennedy. Richard N. Goodwin proceeds through his exciting and successful election of 1960. JFK awarded Goodwin for his splendid work on the campaign , as a top consultant to Latin America. After the assasination, he is forced to work with LBJ. Not content at first, he sees Johnson under a different limelight. The author is more pleased and optimistic about Johnson, only to be let down with Vietnam. LBJ's erratic behavior and his paranoid personality, leads to an early exit from The White House. I highly recommend this book to to individual's who enjoy reading about contemporary American History. As someone who was fortunate to be born a decade later , I was still able to appreciate the historical significance Goodwin's rise and fall within the political arena.
Great read, but not what you may expect.......2000-01-26
Richard Goodwin clerked for a Supreme Court justice, played an important role in the politics of the 1960's, and was personally acquainted with JFK, RFK, LBJ, and Eugene McCarthy. As such, one might imagine that he's got some great stories to tell. And he does. But, lest you get the wrong idea, let me tell you some things you won't find in Remembering America.
Like some others, I bought the book after seeing the movie Quiz Show, to read more about the Van Doren scandal. And, yes, the book is about Van Doren; it's also about a lot of other things, and the quiz show scandal of the late 1950's is only a small part. There's a lot more here than that.
So many books written about JFK and RFK idolize them and give them godlike status. Goodwin clearly admires them both, and is not an impartial judge of either - but in all fairness, I don't believe he would claim to be unbiased. But, if you're looking for effusive, gushing praise of the Kennedys, a la Pierre Salinger, you'll probably find Remembering America a disappointment. Goodwin presents fairly well-rounded portraits of both men.
Perhaps you want historical analysis, complete with graphs, footnotes, and scholarly reasoning. This isn't it. This is Goodwin's own recollections over his career, include his brief (and hilarious) Army service; his admiration of, and later pity for, Johnson; his shock and grief when Robert Kennedy (who had become a close friend by then) was assassinated; his personal impressions, memories of, and anecdotes about a wide variety of significant people, from Felix Frankfurter to Che Guevara.
Maybe you want "the voice of the sixties," complete with all the garbage that often passes these days for political and historical thought about that period: self-indulgence, combined with the sanctimonious suggestion that the baby boomers were the only people ever to be troubled by or try to change the world around them, topped with the arrogant idea that they are always right. Nope, you won't find that here either. Goodwin does recall that decade as turbulent, exciting, and volatile; I wouldn't be surprised if he considered those years the best times in his life. But he does not consider the era or people to be sacred.
So what's here to like? A hell of a lot.
Book Description
The second edition of "Takin' it to the streets" revises the comprehensive collection of primary documents of the 1960s that has become the leading reader on the era. Adopted nationwide, this anthology brings together representative writings, many of which have been unavailable for years or have never been reprinted. Drawn from mainstream sources, little-known sixties periodicals, pamphlets, public speeches, and personal voices, the selections range from the Port Huron Statement and the NOW Bill of Rights to speeches by Malcolm X, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, to private letters from civil rights workers and Vietnam soldiers. Introductions and headnotes by the editors highlight the importance of particular documents, relating them to each other and placing them within the broader context of the decade. Particular attention is paid to civil rights, Black Power, the counterculture, the women's movement, anti-war activity, and gay and lesbian struggles, as well as the conservative current that ran counter to more typical sixties movements. For this revised edition, the editors have added nearly thirty selections, including new readings on religion, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, gay rights, conservatism, and the Vietnam War experience. Covering an extremely popular period of history, "Takin' it to the streets" remains the most accessible and authoritative reader on an extraordinary decade, one unlike America had seen before or has experienced since.
Customer Reviews:
A Little Disappointed..........2005-04-29
I am surprised to see such positive reviews of this book. While the historical element of the text was enjoyable, I felt that the book was heavily weighted to support a certain opinion. While I typically consider myself and Independent I got a little tired of the liberal rhetoric that appeared again and again in every into. In addition, I do not feel that the articles were chosen to represent what was actually occuring during the 60's but rather to paint a very deliberate picture. To portray the U.S. as being so black or white (good guys and bad guys) is a disapointment and it ignores the complexity of us as individuals. My biggest complaint is the portrayal of the Vietnam War and veterans in general. To ignore the soldiers who fought believing in a "nobel cause" is an injustice.
Again, I do not support either side but feel that this is a misrepresentation as a whole...I hope that if you do read this book that it is not the only one that you read on the sixties.
Primary Sources for the 1960's.......2002-05-08
This book is an anthology of numerous primary source statements, manifestos, and letters concerning events in America during the 1960's. "Takin it to the Streets" turned out to be very helpful for a class I took on this time period. There is so much here and that it boggles the mind. Almost all viewpoints are represented in some respect or another, although some might be missing or not as well represented, as one of the other reviewers of this book pointed out.
What you will find in this book are excerpts from the Port Huron Statement, conservative viewpoints on the anti-war movement, the platform for the Black Panther party, accounts of sit-ins during the civil rights struggle in the South, feminist statements and a million other things. It must have been difficult at times to put this book together, as deciding what to include (and what not to include) would be extremely difficult. Chances are whatever you're looking for is probably here in some form or another. Very helpful as a guide through this tumultuous time and essential for a student trying to get the feel for the times.
Very good, extensive collection of primary documents.......2000-04-15
This over 600 page book consists of primary documents from numerous sources, as well as succinct and helpful introductions by the editors that help to identify the selections and put them in context. It should be a valuable resource for scholars and non-scholars alike, though an index would have made it somewhat more user-friendly.
The book mostly consists of selections from the leftist and counter-culture movements of the 60s, though there is a token pro-Establishment section with items from the likes of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
Due to my own personal interests, I would have appreciated seeing more selections from the nonviolent elements of the 60s movements-the pacifists, nonviolent anarchists, Gandhians, conscientious objectors, etc. Certainly the book does not neglect these elements entirely, but they are not as well represented as I might have liked.
Many things struck me in reading this book. I found the idealism--and what some would dismiss as naivete--of some of the early civil rights activists and of the Free Speech Movement leaders among others to be quite appealing. On the other hand, many of the selections serve as useful reminders that the factionalism, the bitter strident rhetoric, the simplistic ideologies, the in-fighting, the condemnation of anyone not accepted as a co-victim, etc. that I tend to think of as mostly insignificant excesses that arose late in the game after years of defeat and frustration were actually present all along.
What you won't find much of is the cynicism, apathy, smugness, defeatism, etc. of more recent times. Whatever is objectionable about some of the people you'll encounter in these selections, at least they had a sincerity about them, a desire to make their society and their world a better place, and a willingness to take action in accordance with their ideals. A few of them and their ideological descendants in the politically correct crowd have surely done more harm than good, but on the whole, they were on the right side of the vast majority of the issues they fought on, and even their quite limited successes have left us with slightly more freedom and justice, and slightly less war-tolerance than before they came along.
Indispensible.......2000-02-20
Probably the best collection of primary documents relating to the period that's yet been published. An invaluable collection that's of use not only to scholars of the era, but to anyone with any interest at all in the 1960s, the political and social changes wrought during that decade, and the imprint they've left on today's consciousness. Bloom and Breines's selections and introductions are excellent. Highly recommended.
Average customer rating:
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Second Thoughts: Former Radicals Look Back at the Sixties
Peter Collier
Manufacturer: Madison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 1945 - Present
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| 20th Century
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| Americas
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Radical Thought
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ASIN: 0819171484 |
Book Description
More than 20 former radicals of the sixties come out of the political closet and look back at the dream that died.
Book Description
Here is a panoramic history of America from 1954 to 1973, ranging from the buoyant teen-age rebellion first captured by rock and roll, to the drawn-out and dispiriting endgame of Watergate. In America's Uncivil Wars, Mark Hamilton Lytle illuminates the great social, cultural, and political upheavals of the era. He begins his chronicle surprisingly early, in the late '50s and early '60s, when A-bomb protests and books ranging from Catcher in the Rye to Silent Spring and The Feminine Mystique challenged attitudes towards sexuality and the military-industrial complex. As baby boomers went off to college, drug use increased, women won more social freedom, and the widespread availability of birth control pills eased inhibitions against premarital sex. Lytle describes how in 1967 these isolated trends began to merge into the mainstream of American life. The counterculture spread across the nation, Black Power dominated the struggle for racial equality, and political activists mobilized vast numbers of dissidents against the war. It all came to a head in 1968, with the deepening morass of the war, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., race riots, widespread campus unrest, the violence at the Democratic convention in Chicago, and the election of Richard Nixon. By then, not only did Americans divide over race, class, and gender, but also over matters as simple as the length of a boy's hair or of a girl's skirt. Only in the aftermath of Watergate did the uncivil wars finally crawl to an end, leaving in their wake a new elite that better reflected the nation's social and cultural diversity. Blending a fast-paced narration with broad cultural analysis, America's Uncivil Wars offers an invigorating portrait of the most tumultuous and exciting time in modern American history.
Customer Reviews:
Why fact-checking matters.......2007-07-07
I cannot in good conscience recommend Mr. Lytle's "America's Uncivil Wars" due to several egregious errors which found their way past his fact-checkers (if any) and made it into print. To cite a few:
1. In citing the impact of the Beatles early in the book, he quotes the lyrics of "She Loves You" as "with a love like that, you know it can't be bad." The actual lyric, of course, is "you know you should be glad." This should be common knowledge among Lytle's (and later) generations; the misquote is puzzling at best.
2. He refers to George McGovern as the Senator from North Dakota. McGovern, of course, was from South Dakota.
3. Late in the book, he cites Lyndon Johnson's attempts to stymie Richard Nixon's "re-election" in 1968. Nixon, of course, was running for election, not re-election.
While taken individually, these mis-statements may appear innocuous. However, since Lytle purports to be writing a comprehensive overview of a contentious era in our history, a little more attention to the facts might have been in order.
The balance of the book, while a reasonably pleasant read, covers ground that has been covered in far greater detail and analysis by myriad writers such as Todd Gitlin, Stephen Ambrose, Tom Wicker, Woodward & Bernstein, and others. Readers interested in a more probing analysis of this period of our history are advised to seek out their works.
Most Balanced Account of the 60s Yet.......2006-10-21
This is the most balanced account of the 60s I've ever read. Too many authors are caught up in their own experience or continue to fight the battles of the era. America's Uncivil Wars recognizes that the 60s were more a generational experience than a discrete period of time. I fully agree with the division into three periods from 56-64, 64-68, and 68 through Watergate. A driving sense of narrative moves the book from event to event and brings to life the wide range of personalities who gave the 60s their flavor. The background material on the 50s and the growing attacks on consensus culture are rich and engagingly told. And no other book I've read gives such prominence to feminists, the Red and Brown Power movements, environmentalism, and Gay Rights. Conservative student and political movements get their due as well. My only regret is that the book, like the 60s, had to end because this is a good read.
Our Turbulent Years & Their Aftermath........2005-12-29
This was a most interesting book for me, as I must have slept through the Sixties; I remember the Fifties part and the happenings of the Seventies, when former President Richard Nixon was disgraced. He covers the times from 1954 (an important time in my history) to 1973 with the social, cultural and political upheavals. First came rock'n'roll which, he says, instigated teenage rebellion; I detested that 'junk,' as 'pop music' was a part of my young life -- the most important, I guess. Knoxville was not big on rock and roll, as it is primarily steeped in hillbilly and country. We've always been naturally musical here, but in a different way from the rest of the country.
This book gives us a journey back in memory to that unsettled era when parts of America were tearing itself apart. I'm glad I lived in a small town further South during the civil unrest which shook the country, and I honestly don't remember the atomic bomb protests of the late '50s. During the turbulent times of the '60s, Woodstock and the drug culture were not a part of my existence -- a vague memory of reading about it only. At our junior college, there were no protestors of the VietNam War; my neighbors (two old ladies) would tell me about the Vietnamese setting themselves on fire as a protest, which they saw on television. It was a time when "political activists mobilized vast numbers of dissidents against the war," as some are trying to do now with the lingering Iraq War.
At Kent State (only a photo in the news to me), there was campus unrest which resulted in an innocent person being shot and killed by the police. He gave bad descriptions of William Buckley (I admit, he is hard to take at times!) and Joseph McCarthy. McCarthyism was a part of life in 1950 and on past the death of its instigator. Extremist groups were around then, as they are now. The Watergate scandal was President Nixon's undoing, when he went on the defensive. "Only in the aftermath of Watergate, did the uncivil wars ... end." The late Jack White, a 'Time' magazine columnist, won the Pulitzer Prize for his exposure of Richard Nixom's underpayment of his income taxes. His 1973 story prompted the president (who paid more than four hundred thousand dollars in back taxes) to utter his famous remark, "I am not a crook." I remember vividly in 1973 when he was almost impeached, like another U.S. President Bill Clinton, and resigned under pressure.
Mark H. Lytle, history professor at Bard College, has also written AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION and NATION OF NATIONS: A NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.
Terrible.......2005-10-15
Lets say you were reading a book on the mafia, written by John Gotti, or perhaps some lesser-known mobster. And there was nothing but glowing accolades for the mob and it's activities. Furthermore, anyone who opposed the mafia and it's activities was labeled an "extremist" and in the text, their names were never more than about 4 or 5 words away from words like "Ku Klux Klan," "racist," "bigoted," or "paranoid," you'd begin to suspect that the book was a bit biased, wouldn't you?
"Americas Uncivil Wars" is a book written by Mark Lytle, a professor at Bard College. He documents events in American History, in this book, from the 1950's to about 1975. Practically every time a genuine conservative individual, or organization is mentioned in this book, it is associated to a racist organization, whenever Mr. Lytle doesn't add his own commentary. For example, on page 22, he says Joseph McCarthy revealed himself as a "mean-spirited slob." This is a far cry from the McCarthy I know, the McCarthy who wrote the brilliant "Americas Retreat from Victory" for example. And forget about anything good mentioned about the John Birch Society. Page 138: "Most Americans ignored the hooded Klansmen, the John Birchers, and other extremists..." never mind the fact that JBS is not and never was a racist or an extremist organization. But here is their name, sandwiched between the KKK and "extremist."
It is a typical tactic of the left to associate the opposition with the "stench of racism" as Stalin may have put it (I don't remember his exact quote). But you might ask, what about on page 89 where he refers glowingly to William F. Buckley as "the cornerstone of the anti-communist wing of conservatism...?" Keep in mind that this is the same Buckley who years later, in Lingua Franca magazine, confessed that he would be a "Mike Harrington Socialist" or a "Communist" if he were college brat today.
Now on the other hand, try to find anywhere in this book, the words "murderer," or even "extremist" in front of names like Mao Tse Tung, or Che Guevara or Tom Hayden, to name a few. There is a good reason for that, but I will leave it to your imagination, the reason why.
In summary, should you decide to read this book, take it with a grain of salt, or better yet some motion-sickness pills because unless you are prone to the same convictions as our professor Lytle is, you're going to need a barf-bag.
Book Description
Relive one of the most magical times in history, a time that saw profound cultural and spiritual change throughout the world, but nowhere more than in the San Francisco Bay of the mid to late 1960's. Author and photographer Gene Anthony was there, capturing every moment, every poem, every song, and every embrace on film. This photographic tour gets you up close and personal with musicians like Jim Morrison, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. It takes you inside the volatile demonstrations at the heart of the anti-war movement, the women's rights movement, the struggle for civil rights. From the Fillmore, to the Human Be-in, to the Trips Festival, Anthony has created a collection of work that captures the feeling of these once in a lifetime events. With over 300 personal and passionate photographs, this book is a visual tour through the freedom, hopes, and beliefs that defined an era and changed the world.
Customer Reviews:
Terrific look at the magic.......2006-11-11
Gene Anthony's new book MAGIC OF THE SIXTIES is a terrific collection of his photographs, which with few exceptions were taken in and around San Francisco during that tumultuous decade. He certainly must have been out and about to have gotten all these, with photos from an incredible variety of venues including rock concerts, appeal parties, nude parties, the human be-in, the magic bus, office of "The San Francisco Oracle," apartment of poster artist Satty, activities of the Diggers, and much more. The epicenter of all this was the famous Height-Ashbury district. Other similar photo collections from the Sixties that I've seen do not have nearly the variety or organization into many topics that MAGIC OF THE SIXTIES has. Some famous faces Anthony captured include those of Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, and particularly famous images of George and Linda Harrison. The generous text is also by Anthony, and it's true that it is overly idealistic, yet the occasional launch into hyperbole (such as the excerpt quoted by Publisher's Weekly above) is rare, since most of the text is helpfully descriptive. Also, it's not all positive, as with the chapter on the Free Clinic, which he points out was focused on helping people with drug problems. I'm glad this book does focus on the idealism of the Sixties' counterculture in promoting love, peace, environmental protection, non-materialism, and the like, with the close of the book being especially apt:
"Now, as perhaps never in the years since the Sixties, we need to look back for solutions to present problems. We need to shake off our cloaks of powerlessness and apathy. The Sixties seem particularly fit for the task. It was magic, and it all really happened!"
Looking for solutions.......2004-11-04
Gene Anthony gives us a lot of personal recollections and adds to the growing volume of insight into a formative time. Some of the pictures are excellent. What I look for I found on the last page; these words: "Now, as perhaps never in the years since the sixties, we need to look back for solutions to present problems. We need to shake off our cloaks of powerlessness and apathy. The sixties seem particularly fit for the task. It was magic and it really happened!" I agree.
The inclussion of the Diggers and Morningstar is important. Here is the key: Service, sharing, compassion; one world, one love, one people. These ideas got a boost back then. They need another big boost now. My own book, "New Buffalo; Journals from a Taos Commune", offers insight also into a movement that should be huge. Let's get some farms and paint some buses and get this show back on the road! With love, Arty Kopecky
Books:
- The Wise Guy Cookbook: My Favorite Recipes From My Life as a Goodfella to Cooking on the Run
- The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- To Play the Fool
- Unforgiven
- Vertigo and dizziness
- Your Movie Sucks
- A-List #6, The: Some Like It Hot: An A-List Novel (A-List)
- American Cinema/American Culture
- American Movie Critics: From the Silents Until Now
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The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s (Columbia Guides to American History and Cultures)
"Takin' it to the streets": A Sixties Reader
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