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The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America
In The Long March, Roger Kimball, the author of Tenured Radicals, shows how the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s and '70s took hold in America, lodging in our hearts and minds, and affecting our innermost assumptions about what counts as the good life.
Kimball believes that the counterculture transformed high culture as well as our everyday life in terms of attitudes toward self and country, sex and drugs, and manners and morality. Believing that this dramatic change "cannot be understood apart from the seductive personalities who articulated its goals," he intersperses his argument with incisive portraits of the life and thought of Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, Susan Sontag, Eldridge Cleaver and other "cultural revolutionaries" who made their mark.
For all that has been written about the counterculture, until now there has not been a chronicle of how this revolutionary movement succeeded and how its ideas helped provoke today's "culture wars." The Long March fills this gap with a compelling and well-informed narrative that is sure to provoke discussion and debate.
Kimball believes that the counterculture transformed high culture as well as our everyday life in terms of attitudes toward self and country, sex and drugs, and manners and morality. Believing that this dramatic change "cannot be understood apart from the seductive personalities who articulated its goals," he intersperses his argument with incisive portraits of the life and thought of Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, Susan Sontag, Eldridge Cleaver and other "cultural revolutionaries" who made their mark.
For all that has been written about the counterculture, until now there has not been a chronicle of how this revolutionary movement succeeded and how its ideas helped provoke today's "culture wars." The Long March fills this gap with a compelling and well-informed narrative that is sure to provoke discussion and debate.
326 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
31 people are currently reading
800 people want to read
About the author
Roger Kimball
75 books63 followersAmerican art critic and social commentator. He was educated at Cheverus High School, a Jesuit institution in South Portland, Maine, and then at Bennington College, where he received his BA in philosophy and classical Greek, and at Yale University. He first gained prominence in the early 1990s with the publication of his book, Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Higher Education.
Additionally, he is editor and publisher of The New Criterion magazine and the publisher of Encounter Books. He currently serves on the board of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the board of Transaction Publishers and as a Visitor of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college based in Savannah, Georgia. He also served on the Board of Visitors of St. John's College (Annapolis and Santa Fe). His latest book, The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia, was published by St. Augustine's Press in June of 2012.
Additionally, he is editor and publisher of The New Criterion magazine and the publisher of Encounter Books. He currently serves on the board of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the board of Transaction Publishers and as a Visitor of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college based in Savannah, Georgia. He also served on the Board of Visitors of St. John's College (Annapolis and Santa Fe). His latest book, The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia, was published by St. Augustine's Press in June of 2012.
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December 15, 2021
Prescient as it is percipient.
An average reader of this book when it was originally published in 2000 might have wondered what Kimball was so cranky about. Even if you were to view things from a staunch conservative’s perspective, you would have to admit that America and the world were not so badly off at the turn of the century. The issues Kimball talked about were clearly problematic, but they were confined to seemingly insignificant sectors of the culture, and the vast majority of Americans were still sensible enough not to fall prey to them.
Fast forward twenty years, and all of the distress seems not only well-founded, but downright prescient. The seeds that were planted by 60s radicals had a flowering in the 80s and 90s and had infested all corners of society by 2020. Kimball doesn’t quite name them specifically, but we can see how pretty much every major leftist movement that has dominated our time originated in the counterculture of the 60s: Identity Politics, Intersectionality, Black Lives Matter, Diversity and Equity, Triggering and Safe Spaces, #MeToo, Cancel Culture, Fake News, Fact-Checkers.
Kimball quotes activist Jerry Rubin when he explained all of the activism in the last twenty years: “If there had been no Vietnam war, we would have invented one.” And so we see that in the absence of any egregious law or war, leftists today have invented all kinds of things to protest. The point has not been to end the war or any other offenses. The point has always been to condemn and upend America. As Susan Sontag said, “Vietnam offered the key to a systematic criticism of America.” And so serves every leftist cause célèbre of our decade.
If there is a deficiency with this book, it is that there is no overarching argument. Kimball doesn’t take us step-by-step through the Long March as the title promises. Though interesting, the first few chapters covering the Beat poets do little to uncover the source of the cultural cancer and only serves to discredit them as cultural icons. They certainly need discrediting, but, for this theme, it might have been better to examine the Beats’ inspiration in Foucault and Sartre, who seem to be more directly responsible for the nihilistic brand of Marxism that has taken over in the 21st century. Not coincidentally, in 2021, what little influence the Beats have remaining is being beaten out of them by their patricidal offspring, #MeToo and Cancel Culture.
Though Kimball doesn’t walk us through the Long March, his keen analysis makes this book one of the best treatments on the 60s counterculture and university riots, alongside Bork’s Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, and the fourth part of Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence. And it must be said that Kimball is one of the most incisive word slingers writing today. I imagine that most of the targets of Kimball’s invective can’t grasp its ferocity, but, if they could, they might take pride in it. Indeed, everyone should appreciate this classic diatribe.
An average reader of this book when it was originally published in 2000 might have wondered what Kimball was so cranky about. Even if you were to view things from a staunch conservative’s perspective, you would have to admit that America and the world were not so badly off at the turn of the century. The issues Kimball talked about were clearly problematic, but they were confined to seemingly insignificant sectors of the culture, and the vast majority of Americans were still sensible enough not to fall prey to them.
Fast forward twenty years, and all of the distress seems not only well-founded, but downright prescient. The seeds that were planted by 60s radicals had a flowering in the 80s and 90s and had infested all corners of society by 2020. Kimball doesn’t quite name them specifically, but we can see how pretty much every major leftist movement that has dominated our time originated in the counterculture of the 60s: Identity Politics, Intersectionality, Black Lives Matter, Diversity and Equity, Triggering and Safe Spaces, #MeToo, Cancel Culture, Fake News, Fact-Checkers.
Kimball quotes activist Jerry Rubin when he explained all of the activism in the last twenty years: “If there had been no Vietnam war, we would have invented one.” And so we see that in the absence of any egregious law or war, leftists today have invented all kinds of things to protest. The point has not been to end the war or any other offenses. The point has always been to condemn and upend America. As Susan Sontag said, “Vietnam offered the key to a systematic criticism of America.” And so serves every leftist cause célèbre of our decade.
If there is a deficiency with this book, it is that there is no overarching argument. Kimball doesn’t take us step-by-step through the Long March as the title promises. Though interesting, the first few chapters covering the Beat poets do little to uncover the source of the cultural cancer and only serves to discredit them as cultural icons. They certainly need discrediting, but, for this theme, it might have been better to examine the Beats’ inspiration in Foucault and Sartre, who seem to be more directly responsible for the nihilistic brand of Marxism that has taken over in the 21st century. Not coincidentally, in 2021, what little influence the Beats have remaining is being beaten out of them by their patricidal offspring, #MeToo and Cancel Culture.
Though Kimball doesn’t walk us through the Long March, his keen analysis makes this book one of the best treatments on the 60s counterculture and university riots, alongside Bork’s Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, and the fourth part of Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence. And it must be said that Kimball is one of the most incisive word slingers writing today. I imagine that most of the targets of Kimball’s invective can’t grasp its ferocity, but, if they could, they might take pride in it. Indeed, everyone should appreciate this classic diatribe.
June 27, 2018
I was quite disappointed by this analysis of the cultural revolution of the 60's. I would say that the strongest thing going for this book is the historical presentation of the influential writers and activists who shaped the movement. If Kimball had stuck to that, it would have been a fine book. But his commentary on the personalities and beliefs left quite a bit to be desired.
For starters, the introduction was excessively long and seemed to consist of excerpts from the remaining chapters in a somewhat perplexing manner. The section dealing with the Beat generation of the late 50's was the most informative of the book for me. I learned much about the thinking and practices of the founders of radical leftism. I was shocked by the pederasty common among this literary crowd, and I wonder if the #metoo movement will ever work to degrade them for what they did the way that others recently revoked an award given to Laura Ingells Wilder for her apparently racist writings.
A similar modern perplexity would be the way bullying by the Black Panthers, especially in the case of Bobby Seale was condoned for a supposedly greater cause. Bobby Seale as chairman of the Black Panther Party had ordered the torture and murder of Alex Rackley "a young black man suspected of being a police informer." Hillary Clinton was among those at New Haven attempting to use the legal system to see Bobby Seale freed. Where are the cries against bullying when it comes to this? Kimball did a good job covering this event, something with which I was unfamiliar.
But throughout the book the revolutionaries are belittled as if they had nothing to protest. There was no word of support for what the leftists were sometimes rightfully protesting. It was as if materialism, racism, injustice, sexual repression, and the war in Vietnam had nothing in them to provoke a reaction. Here is where Kimball is most unfair and where he will only be preaching to the reactionary choir.
Finally, his attempt to denigrate the cultural analyses of others regarding this decade were boring and nitpicking. The last long chapter of the book seemed to be filled with this, and it did nothing for me.
I wish the book had had more history and less commentary. I shouldn't judge him for not writing the book I wanted and writing another, but that's how I feel about it.
For starters, the introduction was excessively long and seemed to consist of excerpts from the remaining chapters in a somewhat perplexing manner. The section dealing with the Beat generation of the late 50's was the most informative of the book for me. I learned much about the thinking and practices of the founders of radical leftism. I was shocked by the pederasty common among this literary crowd, and I wonder if the #metoo movement will ever work to degrade them for what they did the way that others recently revoked an award given to Laura Ingells Wilder for her apparently racist writings.
A similar modern perplexity would be the way bullying by the Black Panthers, especially in the case of Bobby Seale was condoned for a supposedly greater cause. Bobby Seale as chairman of the Black Panther Party had ordered the torture and murder of Alex Rackley "a young black man suspected of being a police informer." Hillary Clinton was among those at New Haven attempting to use the legal system to see Bobby Seale freed. Where are the cries against bullying when it comes to this? Kimball did a good job covering this event, something with which I was unfamiliar.
But throughout the book the revolutionaries are belittled as if they had nothing to protest. There was no word of support for what the leftists were sometimes rightfully protesting. It was as if materialism, racism, injustice, sexual repression, and the war in Vietnam had nothing in them to provoke a reaction. Here is where Kimball is most unfair and where he will only be preaching to the reactionary choir.
Finally, his attempt to denigrate the cultural analyses of others regarding this decade were boring and nitpicking. The last long chapter of the book seemed to be filled with this, and it did nothing for me.
I wish the book had had more history and less commentary. I shouldn't judge him for not writing the book I wanted and writing another, but that's how I feel about it.
August 22, 2016
Very good non-fiction book on the 1960s & the radicals of that decade.
March 14, 2023
Kimball refers to rock music as “soul-deadening destructiveness” and frankly needs to take a chill pill
June 14, 2021
I regret wasting my money on this piece of junk. Into the thrift store donation box. Just right wing political crap. Kimball has a good writing vocabulary, but it enables a brain soaked in dislike and bitterness, always an outsider looking into the world where he is the expert of everything and once one has read more of Kimball, the tone is familiar. Just a little version of William F Buckley, the same snootiness. An atmosphere of unhappiness and generalizations and little accountability for cherry picking of facts and happenings to suit his viewpoints. If you're entitled and white, this is a good book for you. As for me, it's already wandering around my house, getting closer to the front door. BTW I'm in the right age bracket for the sixties, worked as a mechanic and a struggling student. Perhaps Kimball should have starved a bit as well to get a taste of reality.
April 6, 2017
Despite the author's right wing bias, this book raises many valid points about how the 60's influenced society. He pointed out that political correctness actually impedes freedom of speech-an important conclusion indeed. His assessment of the major characters in Sixties counterculture are enlightening as well.
July 26, 2016
I read this book years ago. I listened to the audio version this time. It's an interesting and informative book on the 1960s. There is some foul language, but it is used only in certain cases to quote culture figures of the 1960s for the purpose of showing the culture rot of the 1960s.
March 26, 2015
Read every Roger Kimball you can. He is one of the most insightful commentators on our culture and our times.
March 19, 2024
A difficult book to get through. However, it shines a vital light on the disturbing revolution of the 1960s. If you wonder how modern society has gotten so depraved and disturbed, look to the 60s.
August 19, 2025
Roger Kimball’s The Long March offers a provocative critique of the legacy of the 1960s in American cultural and political life. Written from a decidedly conservative perspective, Kimball’s work situates the student radicalism, cultural upheavals, and intellectual ferment of the decade within a broader narrative of civilizational decline, contending that the radical impulses of that period achieved enduring institutional power in the decades that followed. The book’s title invokes Mao Zedong’s revolutionary trek, underscoring Kimball’s thesis that the cultural revolution of the American New Left did not dissipate with the end of the 1960s but instead embarked on a “long march through the institutions,” ultimately reshaping the nation’s universities, media, and public life.
The volume is organized as a series of essays, many of which originated in Kimball’s journalistic and critical writing, but which collectively form a coherent polemical argument. His central claim is that the political defeats of the radical Left in the 1960s—particularly the failure to effect revolutionary change in the streets—masked a more profound victory: the colonization of cultural institutions. He contends that the ethos of moral relativism, hostility to tradition, and suspicion of authority became embedded within American higher education, journalism, and the arts, leading to what he views as a debilitation of the cultural fabric.
Kimball’s analysis is at its sharpest when examining the transformation of the university. Echoing themes from his earlier work Tenured Radicals (1990), he argues that the academy became a principal vector of radical ideology, perpetuating the ideas of the 1960s long after their immediate political moment had passed. In his view, disciplines in the humanities and social sciences became dominated by critical theories—Marxism, feminism, poststructuralism—that eroded intellectual standards and replaced a concern with truth and beauty with an obsession with power and identity. The book also traces how these intellectual shifts influenced the media, popular culture, and broader social norms, fostering what Kimball portrays as a pervasive culture of permissiveness and nihilism.
Methodologically, The Long March is less a work of detached historical scholarship than a cultural polemic. Kimball writes with an acerbic wit and a clear ideological commitment, and while this makes the book rhetorically powerful, it also limits its analytical balance. Critics from across the political spectrum might object that his account simplifies the complex legacies of the 1960s, neglecting the genuine expansions of civil rights, individual freedom, and democratic participation that emerged from the era. Moreover, his tendency to generalize about “the Sixties” risks flattening significant distinctions among movements, thinkers, and cultural expressions.
Nevertheless, The Long March occupies an important place in the intellectual history of American conservatism at the turn of the twenty-first century. It exemplifies the critique, common among conservative commentators, that the cultural revolution of the 1960s represented not merely a generational rebellion but a durable reconfiguration of American values and institutions. For scholars of cultural politics, the book serves as a primary source reflecting the anxieties of conservative intellectuals about relativism, academic radicalism, and the decline of traditional cultural authority.
Kimball’s The Long March is best read not as a dispassionate history of the 1960s but as an intervention in ongoing debates about culture, politics, and education. Its polemical character is both its strength and its weakness: it crystallizes a particular ideological stance with clarity and force, yet at the cost of analytical nuance. For readers seeking to understand the conservative critique of the 1960s’ legacy, however, Kimball’s work remains a significant and illuminating text.
GPT
The volume is organized as a series of essays, many of which originated in Kimball’s journalistic and critical writing, but which collectively form a coherent polemical argument. His central claim is that the political defeats of the radical Left in the 1960s—particularly the failure to effect revolutionary change in the streets—masked a more profound victory: the colonization of cultural institutions. He contends that the ethos of moral relativism, hostility to tradition, and suspicion of authority became embedded within American higher education, journalism, and the arts, leading to what he views as a debilitation of the cultural fabric.
Kimball’s analysis is at its sharpest when examining the transformation of the university. Echoing themes from his earlier work Tenured Radicals (1990), he argues that the academy became a principal vector of radical ideology, perpetuating the ideas of the 1960s long after their immediate political moment had passed. In his view, disciplines in the humanities and social sciences became dominated by critical theories—Marxism, feminism, poststructuralism—that eroded intellectual standards and replaced a concern with truth and beauty with an obsession with power and identity. The book also traces how these intellectual shifts influenced the media, popular culture, and broader social norms, fostering what Kimball portrays as a pervasive culture of permissiveness and nihilism.
Methodologically, The Long March is less a work of detached historical scholarship than a cultural polemic. Kimball writes with an acerbic wit and a clear ideological commitment, and while this makes the book rhetorically powerful, it also limits its analytical balance. Critics from across the political spectrum might object that his account simplifies the complex legacies of the 1960s, neglecting the genuine expansions of civil rights, individual freedom, and democratic participation that emerged from the era. Moreover, his tendency to generalize about “the Sixties” risks flattening significant distinctions among movements, thinkers, and cultural expressions.
Nevertheless, The Long March occupies an important place in the intellectual history of American conservatism at the turn of the twenty-first century. It exemplifies the critique, common among conservative commentators, that the cultural revolution of the 1960s represented not merely a generational rebellion but a durable reconfiguration of American values and institutions. For scholars of cultural politics, the book serves as a primary source reflecting the anxieties of conservative intellectuals about relativism, academic radicalism, and the decline of traditional cultural authority.
Kimball’s The Long March is best read not as a dispassionate history of the 1960s but as an intervention in ongoing debates about culture, politics, and education. Its polemical character is both its strength and its weakness: it crystallizes a particular ideological stance with clarity and force, yet at the cost of analytical nuance. For readers seeking to understand the conservative critique of the 1960s’ legacy, however, Kimball’s work remains a significant and illuminating text.
GPT
December 13, 2022
A helpful look at the specific individuals including Allen Ginsberg, Bill Burroughs, Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, Wilhelm Reich, Paul Goodman, Norman Brown, Herbert Markuza, Charles Reich, Timothy Leary, and Eldridge Cleaver who were influential counter cultures long march through the institutions.
March 2, 2019
In The Long March the author examines and explains the 1960s and 1970s "cultural revolution" that took place in the US. The result was dramatic changes in attitudes toward America, sex and drugs, manners and morality. To make his arguments he uses portraits of the major counterculture personalities who made their mark at that time like Allen Ginsberg, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, and Eldridge Cleaver. Unlike the conventional wisdom of that time that says if you remember the 1960s, you weren't really there, I was there and I do remember. I remember getting my education, serving my country, making a living, and all the normal activities of that time. Because of that I wasn't paying that much attention to a lot of the events and activities the author presents in this book; so I actually learned a lot about what I missed while being normal. He also then explains how, after affecting the American culture at that time and attempting to redefining what is good and bad, they eventually moved on to positions of influence in government, education, media, etc, where we find many of them today. From their they have had major influences on the new generations by filling their heads with mainly negative thoughts about our country resulting in the continuing culture wars we see so much today in lack of respect, trigger warnings, political correctness, etc. I think he did a great job analyzing and explaining how this all started and how we ended up with today's society. Whether you were there or not, it certainly makes for an informative and entertaining look back at that time period.
August 9, 2020
An impeccably well researched, reasoned, and written book on ‘how we got here’ and why. An important read even these twenty years since it was written, in fact, it would be perfectly placed if published in 2020. The the author has a great sense of tongue in cheek humor which can be particularly appreciated with the audiobook version read by Raymond Todd. The topic is quite heavy given the current state of the country making the touches of levity from Kimball’s exquisite sardonic snark very welcome by this reader. As a heads up, there are some quotes and short excerpts in the first few chapters that may be shocking to some in their graphic nature, but you can trust author Roger Kimball that they are there for good reason, as stated above, as explanation and illustration of ‘how we got here’ and why. I appreciated and learned from Kimball’s writing prowess and use of vocabulary as well. I highly recommend this book and it’s audiobook version.
October 15, 2019
I found this book to be one of the most difficult books to listen to that I have ever purchased. Even given some of the excess of the 1960s and the legacy of that time the author finds nothing redeeming in the times or the peoples. The book is mean and spiteful. I am not a fan of the cultural revolution of the 1960's and especially some of it's leaders. Mr. Kimball certainly exposes many of the leaders of the times but does so in a way that makes him look nothing but hateful. I feel that despite the excess of the times there were some good things that came of it. I could not wait for this book to be over and forced myself to finish it.
September 1, 2012
Truly excellent.
September 14, 2020
in this 2000 book, Kimball posits that "the crucial thing to understand and the student (and faculty) leftism of the 1960s and 1970s is its combination of hedonism and bourgeois anti-bourgeois animus. This is the real explanation of its attack on middle-class values, its surrender to drugs and promiscuous sex, its infatuation with bogus forms of "spirituality," and its destructive dabbling in insurrectionary politics."
The author relentlessly tears into people, philosophies, and excesses of the 60's 'cultural revolution' - such as the widespread self-infatuation, naivete, and Anti-Americanism of many of its leaders (writers, activists, and university faculty, among others). And there's a lot there to condemn.
But a better book, IMHO, would have spent less time in vitriolic attacks against these people (the Beats, Timothy Leary, campus revolutionaries, Tom Hayden, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, Eldridge Cleaver, etc.) and put more effort into clarifying and quantifying the moral and intellectual decline that he alleges has been absorbed into mainstream society as a result of this period.
For example, it would have been an effective argument to detail the number of divorces and abortions, and the out-of-wedlock birth rate as consequences of the 'sexual revolution' component of the 1960's movement. Or to detail the sad legacy of illicit drugs on both people and society as downstream outcomes of the era's "turning on".
The author relentlessly tears into people, philosophies, and excesses of the 60's 'cultural revolution' - such as the widespread self-infatuation, naivete, and Anti-Americanism of many of its leaders (writers, activists, and university faculty, among others). And there's a lot there to condemn.
But a better book, IMHO, would have spent less time in vitriolic attacks against these people (the Beats, Timothy Leary, campus revolutionaries, Tom Hayden, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, Eldridge Cleaver, etc.) and put more effort into clarifying and quantifying the moral and intellectual decline that he alleges has been absorbed into mainstream society as a result of this period.
For example, it would have been an effective argument to detail the number of divorces and abortions, and the out-of-wedlock birth rate as consequences of the 'sexual revolution' component of the 1960's movement. Or to detail the sad legacy of illicit drugs on both people and society as downstream outcomes of the era's "turning on".
August 5, 2021
This is a good book to read in tandem with Tom Wolfe's relevant work and David Horowitz's "Radicals." All take on the ideological origins of the "permanent revolution" that is driving us toward dystopia. Wolfe chronicles the outworking of the detachment from traditional moorings chosen by the intellectual and protest-obsessed streams of the movement. Horowitz focuses more on the political action and academic delusions while Kimball explains more of the literary and cultural aspects of what he calls the "re-juvenilization" of America. Since the 1960s, our society's yearning for youth has, first, caused us to equate youthful preposterousness with cool and hip and visionary. Then, in succeeding decades, as we boomers have aged (about which many are in denial), the country has desperately attempted to cling to the vacuous immorality of immature license and licentiousness. As a result, the slimy excess has now largely permeated and infected virtually every corner of American life: certainly politics and government; academia; the media; most K-12 schools; Protestant and Catholic churches; and, most tragically, many families. Sadly, no solutions proposed here (in Horowitz or Wolfe, either); merely a call, as C.S. Lewis urged, to attend. We can defend our little corners from the insidious creep of the acid of the many ideologies of radicalism. Thomas Jefferson: "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
July 5, 2023
"The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960's Changed America" is a thought provoking look at cultural through the context of the radical 60's. Even the 60's themselves are placed in context of earlier philosophy, the sexual permissiveness of the 1920's, and the beat culture of the 50's.
At times it is a very difficult read in that it contains a great deal of vulgar material. When this is done, it is done not in an attempt to be vulgar, rather to highlight the vulgarity of the times by quoting its famous proponents. As aware as I was of names such as Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsburg, I was unaware of the decadent and grossly immoral lives they led. Many figures that
popular culture has enshrined as heroes of enlightenment for our age, would have easily been considered the dregs of society a generation earlier. Thanks to this book, I am the one enlightened.
I recommend the read to anyone desiring to know more about the 1960's and how we got to where we are today. But, be warned. It is not for the young, faint-hearted, or overly sensitive. It employs hard hitting facts about a culture many of us prefer didn't exist.
At times it is a very difficult read in that it contains a great deal of vulgar material. When this is done, it is done not in an attempt to be vulgar, rather to highlight the vulgarity of the times by quoting its famous proponents. As aware as I was of names such as Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsburg, I was unaware of the decadent and grossly immoral lives they led. Many figures that
popular culture has enshrined as heroes of enlightenment for our age, would have easily been considered the dregs of society a generation earlier. Thanks to this book, I am the one enlightened.
I recommend the read to anyone desiring to know more about the 1960's and how we got to where we are today. But, be warned. It is not for the young, faint-hearted, or overly sensitive. It employs hard hitting facts about a culture many of us prefer didn't exist.
September 29, 2023
Don't waste your time with this. If this were truly a historical analysis of the 1960s and how its influence continues to march on today, the author would not allow his clear far right-wing bias to show. He examines the characters and events without really bothering with the context of what was behind the reasons for the protests: violent racism; the suppression of women; a war where government officials lied not only about campaign successes but also about American casualty rates; and a culture where many government officials and leaders of both church and state behaved like Puritains in public and liars and perverts in private. It would be nice if the author would have given us a historical analysis of the counterculture of the 1960s without looking for reasons to blame it on what he perceives are the problems of today.
February 20, 2023
It s common knowledge that the cultural institutions, and particularly the universities, are dominated by the left in the United States, but rarely do people ask the question, “how did this happen?” Kimball explores this question fearlessly. His moral outrage, and judgmental attitude might catch readers off guard, but this fact is only further evidence of the success thus far of the “Long March“ through Western Culture.
From Kerouac to O’Leary, this book traces the lives, attitudes, and in the end, the utter feelings and brokenness of the individuals and forces that are revered and admired by our cultural elite.
Compare with Paul Johnson’s “Intellectuals”
From Kerouac to O’Leary, this book traces the lives, attitudes, and in the end, the utter feelings and brokenness of the individuals and forces that are revered and admired by our cultural elite.
Compare with Paul Johnson’s “Intellectuals”
February 25, 2023
It's not that I don't agree with a lot of Kimball's points. I think I possibly agree with all of them and share the same distaste and even revulsion at the 1960s cultural revolution. That being said, I think Kimball's choice to write without a scholarly tone and failure to adequately explain the cultural revolution's proponents at specific points leaves the book weak. It falls into the trap of simply attacking the other side from the outside, rather than trying to understand them on their own terms and tease out contradictions and areas of weakness from within.
October 21, 2024
Interesting look at the influence and upheaval of some of the most influential people that shaped the 1960s.
I enjoyed coming across words and phrases Id never heard before ..
Nostrum
Asthetically nugatory...
“Rendered Otiose”
But this was all “Prolegomenon”
"Pusillanimous capitulation"
"After a certain amount of tergiversation, Perkins acceded".
“Pseudoscientific argot”
"A piece of obscurantist nonsense"
Synedoce
Obstreperous
I enjoyed coming across words and phrases Id never heard before ..
Nostrum
Asthetically nugatory...
“Rendered Otiose”
But this was all “Prolegomenon”
"Pusillanimous capitulation"
"After a certain amount of tergiversation, Perkins acceded".
“Pseudoscientific argot”
"A piece of obscurantist nonsense"
Synedoce
Obstreperous
March 5, 2020
The conclusion of the matter is that if morality was something worth fighting for you need a 'why'. Otherwise your protesting about an immoral government, war, economic system, racism, etc. is exposed as nothing more than a self-centered power struggle. This book rightly identifies the cause of the moral decay in American society.
June 24, 2022
Thoroughly enjoyed this erudite take down of what really is a pretty easy target - given the intellectual lunacy of many that Kimball’s targeted. I especially enjoyed how Kimball tore the ludicrous Norman Mailer to pieces - just gold for anyone familiar with Mailer’s career, work and inflated reputation.
June 3, 2021
The Long March is somewhat diminished by partisan editorializing, but it presents a fascinating narrative of how the 60s cultural revolution radically changed American culture and continues to inform present-day social conflicts.
November 24, 2021
Literally just one big sook
July 18, 2016
I really do not know what to make of this book.
First of all, it took me almost two months to finish the merely 300 pages; not because I am a slow reader, but rather because I grew tired of Kimball's diatribes especially in the first few chapters. Virtually every author discussed is attacked ad hominem. We get to know much about the family backgrounds, drug addictions, and moral shortcomings of the likes of Ginsberg, Mailer, and Sontag. While inciting a certain kind of moral outrage might have been very much intended by Kimball, I have to admit I grew tired of reading after a couple days and put the book away.
Strangely enough though (and that's probably the reason I didn't just leave it unfinished), I found myself wanting to read on about a month later. And, in a way, I have to admit I derived some pleasure from the last 5 or 6 chapters of "The Long March". The so-called Culture Wars might be coming to an end as of this writing (late summer 2016), nevertheless, I feel like Kimball has some points to contribute that shed some light on the very roots of that conflict. You might not like a lot of the conclusions he arrives at, but I think that in some cases, he just has a point, especially when he pokes fun at the meaninglessness of certain phrases from counterculture heroes like Leary or Reich.
That being said, I found some passages really tiresome. For the reader who prefers lengthy quotes from people that history has in some cases rightfully forgotten over the last few decades, then go ahead. There's a lot to be learned about liberal smugness and the unberable attitude of radical chic that was so pervasive in the Leftist discourse throughout the Sixties and quite possibly until nowadays, yet, I feel like everything Kimball said could have been expressed on merely a hundred pages.
(I'd probably give the book 2,5 stars out of 5, but that's not possible)
First of all, it took me almost two months to finish the merely 300 pages; not because I am a slow reader, but rather because I grew tired of Kimball's diatribes especially in the first few chapters. Virtually every author discussed is attacked ad hominem. We get to know much about the family backgrounds, drug addictions, and moral shortcomings of the likes of Ginsberg, Mailer, and Sontag. While inciting a certain kind of moral outrage might have been very much intended by Kimball, I have to admit I grew tired of reading after a couple days and put the book away.
Strangely enough though (and that's probably the reason I didn't just leave it unfinished), I found myself wanting to read on about a month later. And, in a way, I have to admit I derived some pleasure from the last 5 or 6 chapters of "The Long March". The so-called Culture Wars might be coming to an end as of this writing (late summer 2016), nevertheless, I feel like Kimball has some points to contribute that shed some light on the very roots of that conflict. You might not like a lot of the conclusions he arrives at, but I think that in some cases, he just has a point, especially when he pokes fun at the meaninglessness of certain phrases from counterculture heroes like Leary or Reich.
That being said, I found some passages really tiresome. For the reader who prefers lengthy quotes from people that history has in some cases rightfully forgotten over the last few decades, then go ahead. There's a lot to be learned about liberal smugness and the unberable attitude of radical chic that was so pervasive in the Leftist discourse throughout the Sixties and quite possibly until nowadays, yet, I feel like everything Kimball said could have been expressed on merely a hundred pages.
(I'd probably give the book 2,5 stars out of 5, but that's not possible)
February 12, 2012
Judgmental and opinionated with few credible facts other than those that "support" his one side of the argument. Perhaps the most biased book I have ever read. For fans of FOX News only. (I try to read many different angles to any argument but this was quite simply, juvenile).
July 27, 2013
Confused!
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