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Chicago '68
Entertaining and scrupulously researched, Chicago '68 reconstructs the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago—an epochal moment in American cultural and political history. By drawing on a wide range of sources, Farber tells and retells the story of the protests in three different voices, from the perspectives of the major protagonists—the Yippies, the National Mobilization to End the War, and Mayor Richard J. Daley and his police. He brilliantly recreates all the excitement and drama, the violently charged action and language of this period of crisis, giving life to the whole set of cultural experiences we call "the sixties."
"Chicago '68 was a watershed summer. Chicago '68 is a watershed book. Farber succeeds in presenting a sensitive, fairminded composite portrait that is at once a model of fine narrative history and an example of how one can walk the intellectual tightrope between 'reporting one's findings' and offering judgements about them."—Peter I. Rose, Contemporary Sociology
"Chicago '68 was a watershed summer. Chicago '68 is a watershed book. Farber succeeds in presenting a sensitive, fairminded composite portrait that is at once a model of fine narrative history and an example of how one can walk the intellectual tightrope between 'reporting one's findings' and offering judgements about them."—Peter I. Rose, Contemporary Sociology
334 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
David Farber
30 books11 followersDavid Farber is the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kansas.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 6, 2019
David Farber's Chicago '68 offers a multifaceted approach to the disastrous Democratic National Convention of 1968, specifically the protests and "police riots" accompanying it. Farber cuts through the mythology surrounding the event by profiling three of the major "sides" in the fracas in parallel narratives: the Yippies, a counterculture collective mostly interested in ridiculing and showing up the System; the Mobe, a leftist antiwar group devoted to ideological struggle and activism; and the reaction of Mayor Daley and the Chicago police to the protests. Including the last caused Farber some grief when he initially published the book, largely from Movement veterans who saw no reason to humanize or understand their opposition. Hopefully, an impartial historian need not explain why understanding all sides, even one that was mostly in the wrong, is useful. Certainly Farber's approach, profiling the disparate groups and their key figures, pays off with a vivid, blow-by-blow account of the convention chaos, allowing him to illustrate how different ideologies, mindsets and individuals came together for a grandiose, somewhat farcical tragedy.
May 30, 2022
Farber is one of the elders of Sixties history, and this is his work at its best. He tells the story from three different perspectives--the Yippies, the Mobe, and Mayor Daley's police. As he recounts each perspective, he avoids judgements, but the final chapters when he reconsiders the implications of each view are the best part of the book. It was written Reagan era, but much of what he pinpoints continues to play out today. Important piece of the historiography of the decade.
July 6, 2020
This was a decent but incomplete-feeling analysis of some of the key groups involved in the Chicago 1968 Democratic convention protests. I would've liked more about the aftermath of the protests, and also of the official party's response (which was almost absent here)—more reading to do.
What stuck out to me the most, since I read this in the summer of 2020, was how depressing little our conversations around policing have been. In '68 Republicans were arguing that Americans were tired of hearing about police brutality (uh) and what the police really needed was more money and leeway (UH) because all those laws and rights were getting in the way (UHHH) and the protests were just a shelter for criminals (UHHHHHH!) This didn't leave me feeling encouraged especially here in Chicago.
What stuck out to me the most, since I read this in the summer of 2020, was how depressing little our conversations around policing have been. In '68 Republicans were arguing that Americans were tired of hearing about police brutality (uh) and what the police really needed was more money and leeway (UH) because all those laws and rights were getting in the way (UHHH) and the protests were just a shelter for criminals (UHHHHHH!) This didn't leave me feeling encouraged especially here in Chicago.
March 14, 2008
what i learned from this book is that the only good pig is a dead pig.
April 22, 2022
Really really good. I read this both for a better understanding of what happened at the '68 DNC in Chicago, but I also enjoyed the author's experimentation with structure and tone ... for example, embedding Yippie vocabulary in his narrative of the movement. It's rare that you find an academic history book that's this experimental and creative!
Two gripes: 1) I found the narrative chapters to be too meandering - the endless accounts of what was said at different meetings leading up to August 1968 all blurred together after a while. The sections on the ideologies of the Yippies, Mobe, and the Chicago PD were much better. 2) The source base focused a bit too much on leadership for my taste. I would have liked to see statements from leaders complemented with more from the rank-and-file of each group.
Two gripes: 1) I found the narrative chapters to be too meandering - the endless accounts of what was said at different meetings leading up to August 1968 all blurred together after a while. The sections on the ideologies of the Yippies, Mobe, and the Chicago PD were much better. 2) The source base focused a bit too much on leadership for my taste. I would have liked to see statements from leaders complemented with more from the rank-and-file of each group.
March 26, 2024
Separate sections thoroughly examine the plans, goals, and thought processes of the various groups (Yippies, SDS & MOBE, Mayor Daley and the police) that came into conflict during the Democratic National Convention in 1968 Chicago. By treating each of the various groups separately, Farber can do deep dives into their mindsets, immersing himself in their language and milieu. Toward the end, Farber weaves the strands together and then provides more theoretical analysis. All the issues are as depressingly timely today as they were then. To realize how little fundamental change has occurred in 58 years, that all the dark forces of rage, hate, repression, self-righteousness, media irresponsibility, and fascist authoritarianism are getting ready to explode again is disheartening, to say the least. But those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.
February 5, 2022
I don't believe in witholding superlatives if they're due. This book may not be perfect, but the depth of detail and analysis is incredibly poignant, particularly when describing competing national vs. local priorities and how those conflicts manifested in sometimes contradictory actions. I feel Chicago student and community groups often get short shrift in histories of the convention, but one of Farber's main strengths is teasing out relationships and motivations of all of the players. Side note: I was grateful that conjecture of closed-door events was offered only if there evidence of his conclusions. History 101, so if you want frills and hyperbole, this well-researched book is not for you.
July 9, 2022
I wish the author wrote more about the time period while the DNC was in Chicago. I felt like the planning and analysis areas of the book were thorough and explained well but the protesting area was a little thin.
August 2, 2021
The parts of this that covered the events leading up to the ‘68 convention were really interesting, but some of the commentary was dry and not as easy to read.
May 28, 2009
An engaging study. In an interesting and largely successful experiment, Farber splits his book into three sections. In each section, he adopts the perspective of a different group of people. In other words, he tries to tell the story of the 1968 Democratic National Convention through the eyes of the Yippies, the Mobe (the National Mobilization to End the War), and the Chicago police in turn. Only at the end of the book does he provide his own evaluation of these events and their place in American history.
Farber concludes that the young activists who converged to protest and disrupt the convention in 1968 were intellectually and socially rootless. In his view, they were dedicated to radical innovation and were disconnected not only from the majority of Americans but also from the traditions of the American left.
The Yippies, in Farber's telling, were disaffected to the point of rejecting rational political discussion entirely. Fed up with the orderly bureaucratic state, Yippie organizers like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin sought refuge in the irrational and absurd. They accordingly adopted a discourse "redolent with (...) swarms of images that aimed," Farber explains, "to share an experience rather than to state a position." Their distinctive style of activism involved, for example, assembling a team of witches to levitate the Pentagon and shake off its demons, or nominating a hog named Pigasus as their candidate for president.
Simultaneously, the "straight" organizers of the Mobe, especially after the death of the aging pacifist icon A. J. Muste, drifted from their moorings in the tradition of nonviolent activism toward the turmoil of revolutionary militancy. This is partly because they were aware that Chicago police and federal agencies were monitoring their activities closely and trying to prevent any protest from taking place. Many of them, especially members of Students for a Democratic Society, doubted that protesting the war or supporting the candidacy of Eugene McCarthy were useful activities at all; they had come to believe that the entire political system must be repudiated. Some were prepared to use violence to achieve that aim. Although the main Mobe organizers, such as David Dellinger, generally tried to contain such threats, they were also dedicated to the principle of decentralization, leaving individual protesters free to take whatever action they deemed appropriate. In the event, this meant that many protesters at Chicago deliberately goaded the police with threats, verbal abuse, and physical violence, vindicating police brutality in the eyes of reactionaries watching on television and disgusting many of the ordinary Democrats whom the protesters meant to influence. Fearing ruthless repression, the protesters initiated violence of their own and made repression appear morally justifiable on television. Rather than speaking truth to power, Farber implies, the protesters were opposing power with power.
Farber thus indicts both the Yippies and the Mobe for undermining political discussion. The Yippies, he argues, deliberately adopted the empty images of consumer culture, being well aware of the power of the modern marketing. "Like the TV commercial" they consciously emulated, he writes, the Yippies "promised what the vast majority of their audience would never have: a kind of never-never land of consumption without limits and freedom without responsibility. (...) Yippie was fun as long as its politics remained an afterthought." Likewise, he charges that the straight activists of the Mobe were, in practice, exchanging the ideal of political participation for the ideal of the general will. Rejecting the American society that actually existed in favor of an ideal harmonious natural society supposedly waiting to break free from the crushing weight of tradition and order, he writes, the young protesters "guaranteed their own isolation from the vast majority of the American people" and "revealed their own distaste for the realities of democracy."
Meanwhile, Farber does not excuse the brutality of the Chicago police or the more subtle repressive measures taken by the federal authorities. But he does try, apparently assuming that his audience is sympathetic with the students, to understand why these measures would seem perfectly reasonable to so many Americans at the time. In addition to the threat of chaos presented by surrealist and revolutionary youth politics, he points out the salience of "jurisdiction." To Mayor Daley, the Chicago police, and so many Americans watching on television, the protesters were irresponsible outsiders trying to disrupt local life and local decision-making. In many ways, Farber suggests, that's exactly what the protesters were.
Farber concludes that the young activists who converged to protest and disrupt the convention in 1968 were intellectually and socially rootless. In his view, they were dedicated to radical innovation and were disconnected not only from the majority of Americans but also from the traditions of the American left.
The Yippies, in Farber's telling, were disaffected to the point of rejecting rational political discussion entirely. Fed up with the orderly bureaucratic state, Yippie organizers like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin sought refuge in the irrational and absurd. They accordingly adopted a discourse "redolent with (...) swarms of images that aimed," Farber explains, "to share an experience rather than to state a position." Their distinctive style of activism involved, for example, assembling a team of witches to levitate the Pentagon and shake off its demons, or nominating a hog named Pigasus as their candidate for president.
Simultaneously, the "straight" organizers of the Mobe, especially after the death of the aging pacifist icon A. J. Muste, drifted from their moorings in the tradition of nonviolent activism toward the turmoil of revolutionary militancy. This is partly because they were aware that Chicago police and federal agencies were monitoring their activities closely and trying to prevent any protest from taking place. Many of them, especially members of Students for a Democratic Society, doubted that protesting the war or supporting the candidacy of Eugene McCarthy were useful activities at all; they had come to believe that the entire political system must be repudiated. Some were prepared to use violence to achieve that aim. Although the main Mobe organizers, such as David Dellinger, generally tried to contain such threats, they were also dedicated to the principle of decentralization, leaving individual protesters free to take whatever action they deemed appropriate. In the event, this meant that many protesters at Chicago deliberately goaded the police with threats, verbal abuse, and physical violence, vindicating police brutality in the eyes of reactionaries watching on television and disgusting many of the ordinary Democrats whom the protesters meant to influence. Fearing ruthless repression, the protesters initiated violence of their own and made repression appear morally justifiable on television. Rather than speaking truth to power, Farber implies, the protesters were opposing power with power.
Farber thus indicts both the Yippies and the Mobe for undermining political discussion. The Yippies, he argues, deliberately adopted the empty images of consumer culture, being well aware of the power of the modern marketing. "Like the TV commercial" they consciously emulated, he writes, the Yippies "promised what the vast majority of their audience would never have: a kind of never-never land of consumption without limits and freedom without responsibility. (...) Yippie was fun as long as its politics remained an afterthought." Likewise, he charges that the straight activists of the Mobe were, in practice, exchanging the ideal of political participation for the ideal of the general will. Rejecting the American society that actually existed in favor of an ideal harmonious natural society supposedly waiting to break free from the crushing weight of tradition and order, he writes, the young protesters "guaranteed their own isolation from the vast majority of the American people" and "revealed their own distaste for the realities of democracy."
Meanwhile, Farber does not excuse the brutality of the Chicago police or the more subtle repressive measures taken by the federal authorities. But he does try, apparently assuming that his audience is sympathetic with the students, to understand why these measures would seem perfectly reasonable to so many Americans at the time. In addition to the threat of chaos presented by surrealist and revolutionary youth politics, he points out the salience of "jurisdiction." To Mayor Daley, the Chicago police, and so many Americans watching on television, the protesters were irresponsible outsiders trying to disrupt local life and local decision-making. In many ways, Farber suggests, that's exactly what the protesters were.
October 16, 2008
This so far is an excellent book on freedom verses government and military intervention upon that freedom. While the subject at hand is the 68 Chicago Democratic National Convention, the messages and political truths illustrated by the story are timeless.
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May 24, 2015Excellent history of the Chicago 1968 Democratic Convention and surrounding protests and controversy. Farber does a great job of detailing all sides of the situation. Very fair assessment of what happened.
January 8, 2020
A good overview of the chicago '68 events from three viewpoints. However, the author's 'unbiased' viewpoint shines through in his analysis. He misses the chance for an in-depth critique of the student movements, instead dismissing most of their concerns in a similar fashion to their contemporaries.
July 28, 2009
This is a great book, that tells the story of the 1968 convention protests from three persepctives: the Yippies, the Anti-War Coalition, and the cops/Da Mayor. Totally worth the time.
January 15, 2014
A lot of facts, but it is not well written. The author is mired in detail. I would recommend it for the Chicago history completest.
August 1, 2013
An interesting look at the Chicago '68 riots. Definitely a good read!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews