America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s [Paperback]

Maurice Isserman (Author), Michael Kazin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195091914 | ISBN-13: 978-0195091915 | Publication Date: June 2000

America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s is the definitive interpretive survey of the political, social, and cultural history of 1960s America. Written by two top experts on the eraMaurice Isserman, a scholar of the Left, and Michael Kazin, a specialist in Right-wing politics and culturethis book provides a compelling tale of this tumultuous era filled with fresh and persuasive insights. Arguing that the period marked the end of the country's two-century-long ascent toward widespread affluence, domestic consensus, and international hegemony, the authors take students on a tour of the turbulent decade, exploring what did and did not change in the 1960s and why American culture and politics have never been the same since. America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s explains what made the 1960s a decade in which people felt they could make history and why, in the following decades, the history felt so troubling to Americans. They cover such events as the Cuban Missile Crisis and Operation Rolling Thunder, the rise of Motown, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and the important role played by organizations ranging from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee to the Campus Crusade for Christ. They also shed some much-needed light on the eras often overlooked rise of the New Right and its far reaching implications which not only offer a critical dimension to the understanding of this period but to the future of America as well. Isserman and Kazin offer the most sophisticated understanding of the key developments of the decade and break new ground with their careful attention to every aspect of the political and cultural spectrum making America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s an exciting and essential narrative for both students and general readers alike.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Historians (and former 1960s radicals) Isserman (If I Had a Hammer) and Kazin (The Populist Persuasion) mount an intermittently convincing reinterpretation of the 1960s. They start off strong with the Civil War Centennial Commission's remarkable decision to avoid any mention of slavery or emancipation in its five-year-long celebrationAvividly illustrating America's forced "normalcy" as the decade began. But they go on to present an erratic vision of the decade. For instance, they inexplicably relegate the huge 1963 March on Washington to a brief mention. And the popular song "Louie Louie" merits a longer discussion than such critical texts and events as SDS's Port Huron statement and the Supreme Court's Griswold decision. Further, they artificially separate their discussion of politics, culture and spiritualityAthree strands that were intimately linked in the era. The authors' revisionist take does offer some useful correctives, for instance, to the false notions that the War on Poverty was a massive giveaway program and that in the '60s liberalism held sway ("Of the three main branches of the federal government, liberals held the commanding heights... in only one branch, the judiciary... liberalism was neither sufficiently coherent as a political philosophy nor sufficiently well organized as a political movement, to realize many ambitions"). But the dearth of historical analysis of the "why" of this situation will leave many readers unsatisfied. In short, this is a sometimes useful if tepid and occasionally odd corrective to more lopsided views of the '60s. Photos. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Isserman (If I Had a Hammer) and Kazin (The Populist Persuasion) are two of the keenest practitioners of the history of American people's politics. Both came of age in the 1960s, and each has a genetic link, respectively, to the Old Left and the grand liberal tradition of the 1930s. No better-suited collaborators could join to offer a history of the American Sixties. But while the book they offer is commendably balanced, the authors have not written a definitive text. Oddly, they cover most penetratingly terrain already well trod by more staid scholars: conventional electoral politics, Vietnam, the four presidencies, the assassinations. Their most important contribution comes in demonstrating the rise not only of a New Left but a new and persistent Right. By contrast, their writing on the advent of the counterculture, movement politics, and especially urban black nationalism is familiar and too brief. The authors seem to be aiming this book at the undergraduate survey-course marketAeach reference to Jim Crow is accompanied by a parenthetical definitionAand apparently decided to economize on the very subjects still most unsettled by conventional wisdom. Nevertheless, this is recommended for academic, secondary school, and public libraries.AScott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195091914
• ISBN-13: 978-0195091915
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #998,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Accurate, Comprehensive, & masterful Overview of the 1960s!, October 13, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (Hardcover)

It is often said that history is written by the victors, meaning, I suppose, that the particular interpretation recorded for posterity reflects the ideology and perspective of those dominating forces successful in the particular struggle a particular historical treatment covers. Of course, such a self-serving interpretation may in fact vary wildly from anything like an accurate accounting of the actual unfolding of events and issues. Nowhere in contemporary society is such an inaccurate, disingenuous, and self-serving revisionist tendency likely as in the coverage and reflection on the events and issues of the sixties counterculture. Many recent tomes purport the times in such a solipsistic and self-serving fashion as to turn the truth on its very head. Yet all that is corrected in this wonderful overview of the momentous events and social, economic, and political issues as characterized the sixties. In "America Divided", a fascinating work comparing the deep and dangerous divisions within American society to those of the Civil War a hundred years before, authors Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin accurately describe and explain the complex forces that seemed to strain the social fabric to the point of near-revolution and widespread violence in the streets.

The authors carefully avoid the twin mistakes of either overly romanticizing the perspectives, ideas, and issues of the youthful counter culturists to epic proportions on the one hand, or of summarily dismissing them as silly and superficial on the other hand, as is often the case with neo-conservative revisionists who would have us believe the manifest troubles of contemporary America stem primarily from the permissiveness of the counterculture rather than admit it is much more likely the result of massive and constant dislocations associated with scientific and technological change that is threatening the core values and mores of American culture. This book faithfully retraces and integrates the various strands running through the sixties into a seamless historical narrative that renders one of the most sophisticated, articulate, and accurate interpretations of a decade that left those of us who lived through it breathless and yet strangely unable to describe it to anyone who had not shared the experience.

After reading the book, one remembers that those times were indeed characterized by great complexity, diversity, and incredible intellectual ferment and debate. Other recent accounts that blame the counterculture for the contemporary cultural malaise overlook the amazing diversity and intense ongoing dialogue that often degenerated into violent confrontation, whether it be over free speech, civil rights, Vietnam, or the perfidy of the power elite comprised of multinational corporations and big government. This book is a compelling, immensely readable, and quite entertaining work, and one that brilliantly achieves its objective by accurately describing, explaining, and integrating the intricate patchwork of events, issues, and perspectives that made the sixties decade so vital and so unique on recent American history. As with the Civil War, we are unlikely to see its like again. Those of us who remember it as a time of pitch and moment regret it, though clearly other more constipated and conservative voices hardly agree. Read this one before the nattering nabobs of negativity at the helm of the media succeed in explaining it all away.

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A well-balanced and comprehensive study of the 1960's, January 31, 2000

By 

Joe Brown - See all my reviews

This review is from: America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (Hardcover)

In "America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960's," Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin effectively summarize a painfully divisive yet enlightening decade in our nation's history. By focusing on political, cultural, and economic changes wrought by both the liberal and conservative camps, Isserman and Kazin give a comprehensive and objective account of the 1960's. The authors begin by making an interesting point by comparing the sweeping changes wrought by the Civil War with that of the 1960's and make the assertion that both periods had much in common with how they both changed and divided America. In the 1950's, America enjoyed both an economic and diplomatic prosperity in the wake of World War II. The average family income increased and the "affluent society" which arose out of it ironically became an identifying factor in causing much of the political and social divisiveness prevalent in the 1960's. The authors' examination of the civil rights movement and the beginnings of the Vietnam War can be seen as by products of the liberal tendency to view the prosperity of the 1950's as unequal and leaving out the margins of both the poor and non-white population. The Vietnam War was a casualty of American overconfidence in its role in world affairs in the wake of the anti-communism of the 1950's. Isserman and Kazin effectively balance the issues of womens' rights, civil rights, the student movement, and the counterculture and examine their role in both liberal and conservative politics. The authors assert that the Right gained more popularity among voters after the tumultuous years from 1965-1968. Religious life was also transformed in that many liberals questioned established religion and conservatives sought to reassert the morals and values of religion into the national culture. As a result of the 1960's, American political and social life was divided but,at the same time, more positively varied. Newly recognized social groups (gays, minorities, and women) gained more political and social clout and the conservative Right benefitted in the sense the New Left further proved to divide Democratic politics. This book is a must read for anyone to have a good comprehensive overview of the 1960's. My only problem with the book was its length (a little too short) but perhaps the short bibliographic essay at the book will inspire the reader to learn more than what the authors covered in the book. Overall, a must for a 60's historian's bookshelf.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just the facts Ma'am, April 10, 2011

By 

Tojagi (West) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (Paperback)

When I read that these authors were social activists in the 1960s I was bracing myself for a slanted history. Nothing of the kind. This is the most clear, concise, and unbiased account I've read. A textbook account. And it is all protein. No wasted words. I especially liked the four pages starting on page 68 where the authors explain how America got involved with Vietnam. I also appreciated the clear, concise explanation of the religious shake-up beginning on page 255. The Civil rights movement, the women's movement, sex, drugs, rock n roll, the war on poverty; it's all decribed in plain English. I couldn't find one single paragraph where I felt they were pushing an opinion. And perhaps that is why there are not more reviews for this book. People respond to political opinion and polemics. There's a general feeling among Americans that everyone must weigh-in on the sixties, take a side. This is true, I've noticed, even for those not old enough to remember the 60s.

But if you are looking for a `just the facts Ma'am' account of the sixties without all the confusion of opinions and theories, I doubt that you could find a better book. This book deserves five stars not for startling insights or carefully crafted arguments, but for accomplishing a difficult task: a completely unbiased account of a controversial era.