Customer Reviews

1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a worthwhile immersion back into the many strains and tendencies that ran through American life and culture in the 60's and early 70's; in doing that it offers hints into the contemporary political scene. It connects many events in the political, economic, cultural life of that time. It seems to be a good entry into recent American history. The writing style is a little disorienting - in that many ideas and events are shown as being linked together but in a loose way (it felt like reading a Marshall McLuhan book in that no too sharp conclusions are drawn, but there are many half-ghosted ideas introduced that one can choose to explore in other ways and with other methods ) but it is a good starting point for one's own exploration of the ideas and events of that time.

1973 was a seminal year in US history, and Andreas Killen (City College of New York history professor), correctly identifies it as such in his book. Some of the more interesting sections of his book deal with the end of the war in Vietnam and the return of the POWs, Watergate, and the legitimate questions about Nixon's psychological health. He includes a lot of seemingly adulatory material on Andy Warhol and the transvestite punk-rock culture. In a boring and overlong chapter, Killen spends a great deal of time ruminating about how important the Loud family was in their TV show, The American Family. Killen's writing style is strained throughout the book, and his sentence structure is overly complex and sometimes disjointed.

I felt Prof. Killen should have heavily edited the sections on The American Family and the drug hazed Warholites. In wallowing about the forgotten movies of the midseventies and breathlessly praising the Hollywood directors of that year, he overstates the importance of these entertainers and seems to think they were cataclysmic contributors to US history. This sort of attitude is embraced today by the People magazine culture, uninterested in reading anything more than a caption under a celebrity's photograph. Instead of giggling about the New York Dolls, where's a mention of Led Zeppelin or Dark Side of the Moon (which came out that year)?

In getting caught up in how wonderful American Graffiti and Francis Ford Coppola are, Killen grossly under-represents or fails to mention Roe v. Wade, the downing of Libyan Airlines Flight 114, Nixon's visit to China, the showdown at Wounded Knee, the founding (and reasons for the founding) of the DEA, the conclusion of the Thalidomide class action suit, the Houston Mass Murders, the Saturday Night Massacre, and the APA's belated removal of homosexuality from the DSM. What was happening in the art world at that time, or in classical music?

Prof. Killen's main idea was right--1973 was an important year, and maybe it did represent the death of the Sixties and the birth of a neurotic, conspiracy-minded era in modern US history. However, he overemphasizes the above-mentioned subjects and too narrowly defines the important events of that year.

Andreas Killen nailed it! 1973, barely recognized as the year that should go down in history as the "great" transition from an era that celebrated the middle class to the start of an era that began its erosion, is as Killen said, a "cultural watershed". The present does not arise in a vacuum, and Killen proves this as he successfully weaves together the events and themes of 1973 into a pattern whose frame establishes an age that is to come.

I really enjoyed this book! After years of thinking about the 1970's as political and cultural deadweight, I was surprised to discover how significant the 1970's were in shaping our current social and political landscape. I was captivated by the ways that Killen wove together seemingly disparate events and themes. His writing is both smart and accessible. I laughed out loud and I learned some things, which is strong praise in my book. I highly recommend this book and I can't wait for the sequel. 1984 anyone?