What do you think?
Rate this book
A Nonconformist History of Our Times #5
In a Time of Torment: 1961-1967 (Nonconformist History of Our Times) by I. F. Stone
Author's Bright Promise but Conventional PerformanceThe Missile Crisis in RetrospectThe Right Fails to Take OverAll the Way (Downhill) with LBJA New Cause for MankindTwo Shaky Liberals & a Bomber GeneralA Race in RevoltThe Green Silly & SinisterIn the Quicksand of SE AsiaA Visit to Vietnam & CambodiaWe Always Seem to Guess WrongReluctant Fulbright of ArkansasThe Younger GenerationSome Epitaphs on Noble TombsIn Jefferson's FootprintsOur Less Than Free PressA Giant in ConvulsionFrustrating Our Latin NeighborsTribalism's German, Jews, ArabsIndexAbout the Author
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
2 people are currently reading
123 people want to read
About the author
I.F. Stone
34 books53 followersIsidor Feinstein Stone (better known as I.F. Stone or Izzy Stone) was an American investigative journalist.
He is best remembered for his self-published newsletter, I.F. Stone's Weekly, which was ranked 16th in a poll of his fellow journalists of "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century."
He is best remembered for his self-published newsletter, I.F. Stone's Weekly, which was ranked 16th in a poll of his fellow journalists of "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 31, 2013
This is the penultimate volume of what appears to be a set of seven, chronologically arranged from WWII through 1970. Lacking the first, I've been reading the other six in order.
This volume, covering 1961-67, is the first which covers events which I can personally recall for the most part. I started reading the papers during the Winter Olympics held in Squaw Valley in 1960, my family, like many Norwegians, being greatly excited by the homeland's performance. This and the presidential campaign got me hooked to the Chicago Daily News and Time magazine at home and to the Chicago Tribune and Life magazine at grandmother's house--hardly a recipe to create a leftist.
What turned me around was the US invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, amply covered by Stone. Much as the establishment press endorsed this criminal act, the facts of the matter got through to even such a brainwashed one as my thirteen year old self. The Dominican's had rejected a dictator, electing a moderate democratic socialist, Juan Bosch, as their president. They had, with the help of our Supreme Court's Paul Douglas, written a progressive constitution and begun a process of land reform. Then the generals staged a coup. The Dominicans revolted against the junta. Lyndon Johnson sent in the troops to support the right. The democracy was crushed. Reform ceased.
Still, I was pretty ignorant. That same year I did a research paper supporting the US military in Vietnam, reading mostly books written by military men who had been involved there. I believed what the media told me, my sources being the aforementioned papers and magazines supplemented by the three television networks which I now watched avidly, having purchased my own tv set. It took an argument with Dad and Grandmother's husband, the Tribune reader (!), both of whom opposed the war, to set me straight. Not right away, mind you. I conceded little during our lengthy argument, but in my heart I knew I hardly knew what I was talking about and started fact checking that very night. By the next day I had become convinced that aggression against other states was hardly an exception in the history of US foreign affairs and that my government was acting illegally in SE Asia.
By 1967 I was in the Young Peoples' Socialist League and the Students for a Democratic Society, subscribing to New America, Liberation, The New Republic, Harpers, Ramparts and Natural History magazines. By year's end I was, on the one hand, campaigning vigorously for the peace candidate, Eugene McCarthy; working on underground student papers; and attending the almost weekly peace demonstrations and conferences held in Chicago. The administration at Maine Twp. H.S. South had begun to identify me, a good student, never tardy, never a discipline problem, as a troublemaker. I was also, concurrently, beginning to make real friends, friends I would keep to this day, many of them older, many of them challenging to me (from the left) both politically and philosophically.
This volume, covering 1961-67, is the first which covers events which I can personally recall for the most part. I started reading the papers during the Winter Olympics held in Squaw Valley in 1960, my family, like many Norwegians, being greatly excited by the homeland's performance. This and the presidential campaign got me hooked to the Chicago Daily News and Time magazine at home and to the Chicago Tribune and Life magazine at grandmother's house--hardly a recipe to create a leftist.
What turned me around was the US invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, amply covered by Stone. Much as the establishment press endorsed this criminal act, the facts of the matter got through to even such a brainwashed one as my thirteen year old self. The Dominican's had rejected a dictator, electing a moderate democratic socialist, Juan Bosch, as their president. They had, with the help of our Supreme Court's Paul Douglas, written a progressive constitution and begun a process of land reform. Then the generals staged a coup. The Dominicans revolted against the junta. Lyndon Johnson sent in the troops to support the right. The democracy was crushed. Reform ceased.
Still, I was pretty ignorant. That same year I did a research paper supporting the US military in Vietnam, reading mostly books written by military men who had been involved there. I believed what the media told me, my sources being the aforementioned papers and magazines supplemented by the three television networks which I now watched avidly, having purchased my own tv set. It took an argument with Dad and Grandmother's husband, the Tribune reader (!), both of whom opposed the war, to set me straight. Not right away, mind you. I conceded little during our lengthy argument, but in my heart I knew I hardly knew what I was talking about and started fact checking that very night. By the next day I had become convinced that aggression against other states was hardly an exception in the history of US foreign affairs and that my government was acting illegally in SE Asia.
By 1967 I was in the Young Peoples' Socialist League and the Students for a Democratic Society, subscribing to New America, Liberation, The New Republic, Harpers, Ramparts and Natural History magazines. By year's end I was, on the one hand, campaigning vigorously for the peace candidate, Eugene McCarthy; working on underground student papers; and attending the almost weekly peace demonstrations and conferences held in Chicago. The administration at Maine Twp. H.S. South had begun to identify me, a good student, never tardy, never a discipline problem, as a troublemaker. I was also, concurrently, beginning to make real friends, friends I would keep to this day, many of them older, many of them challenging to me (from the left) both politically and philosophically.
February 14, 2024
Izzy Stone really knew what was going on, and saw through the BS to the truth. Reading his early 60s articles on Vietnam really demonstrates that some people knew the realities of US involvement all along.
April 27, 2008
Ever wonder how much barack obama really IS like JFK? and whether ted sorensen is not actually that cool? and about stuff from the 50s and 60s and 70s? I wonder a lot. And this book helps, because its journalistic accounts of major and minor events of those decades, with topics ranging from Cuba, to SNCC, to space. But what's best is that its the style is unabashed, angry and sharp journalism that we don't see much of anymore...
June 24, 2012
Stone was one of the greatest journalists of all time. I found this and some of the other volumes in a remainder bin. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews