The Sixties: From Memory to History

by David Farber (Editor)

This collection of original essays represents some of the most exciting ways in which historians are beginning to paint the 1960s onto the larger canvas of American history. While the first literature about this turbulent period was written largely by participants, many of the contributors to this volume are young scholars who came of age intellectually in the 1970s and 1980s and thus write from fresh perspectives. The essayists ask fundamental questions about how much America really changed in the 1960s and why certain changes took place. In separate chapters, they explore how the great issues of the decade-the war in Vietnam, race relations, youth culture, the status of women, the public role of private enterprise-were shaped by evolutions in the nature of cultural authority and political legitimacy. They argue that the whirlwind of events and problems we call the Sixties can only be understood in the context of the larger history of post-World War II America.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Research, American History

342 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

David Farber is the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kansas.

Reviews

[Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Here's a comp's review for my exams:

Chester Pach has argued for the importance of understanding TVs influence during Vietnam in two articles. The first appears in this collection. Entitled “And That’s the Way it Was: The Vietnam War on the Network Nightly News”, Pach's chapter argues that Johnson lost public support for the war, in part, because of network night news broadcasts of body bags and sensational battles. Television did not, however, show grizzly images of combat or death; censors in Washington and Saigon forbade any such images to be let into the homes of families, especially during dinner hour. If reporters did get into the thick of battle, they were usually pinned down. In short, the audience at home felt some of what troops on the ground felt: namely, that their enemy was invisible. Without a clear front on which to advance, or without tangible victories in this war of Attrition, policymakers had only numbers to go on feeling their way through this quagmire.

[Donnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of essays about the 60's. If you like that sort of thing.

[Andrew Little · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good book of essays on the 1960s in America. Some essays were more interesting than others, depending on what your interests are.