100 of 120 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Totally, totally....., November 7, 2007
This review is from: Boom!: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today (Hardcover)
Right off let me say that if you missed the sixties, this book is still something you'll want to read. If, like myself, you came of age during that decade you will also find Boom more that worth the time to read.
Brokaw has a way of condensing the ideas he's trying to get the reader to engage. I found The Greatest Generation terribly revealing about my parent's generation. I suspect those born during the sixties and after will also find Boom's content interesting.
I was also impressed with the famous who agreed to be interviewed for this work. I have heard the following quip, "If you can remember the sixties you didn't experience it." Well, clearly for those Brokaw interviewed that isn't true.
Boom is logically organized and intelligently written. You can tell that Brokaw loves doing research and loves his subject.
The hogwash about how much money Brokaw has made and whether this effects his objectivity toward Cheney and others is a distraction. No one has ever challenged Brokaw's professionalism because he earns a lot of money. For some reason, being financially successful is a kiss of death in some individuals eyes.
Boom is a wonderful look at a time that truly is a defining era. There is America before the sixties and the America after the sixties and they aren't the same place. You'll want to read this one slowly and ponder what it says.
Peace from North Carolina
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27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I already had the book form of this and then bought the Kindle edition after participating in a live online chat with Brokaw, December 17, 2007
I'm writing this in the wake of an online chat with Brokaw where he was kind enough to answer some of my questions as well as those of other participants there. It was one short hour which simply flew by!.
Although I had the book in "traditional" form already, I got the Kindle version as well so I could share it with others tomorrow, along with the chat itself (I'd name the site but I don't know if that is allowed here)
As I already knew -but Brokaw reiterated in the chat - the book was a type of "virtual reunion" of people who'd lived through the Sixties and were open to revealing their thoughts and changes forty years after those pivotal years.
The book is aptly titled Boom! because there were true shock waves as major changes rippled quickly - and sometimes tore- through our culture. Brokaw focused on major areas such as feminism and the women's movement,politics (including the Democratic identity crisis), Vietnam, race relations and racism, assassinations, etc.
The famous, infamous and anonymous are interviewed or lend their voices to this book, making it more accessible, not at all dry and very lively. Brokaw noted that he wished he could have covered such topics as the Evangelical movement and the changes in journalism so if you get this book, please be aware that HE is aware of what was not covered. I think that including more areas might have watered down the book so I think this was a wise choice.
I think he did a superb job, especially with the format, including firsthand accounts from those who'd been in Vietnam as well as notable names like Gloria Steinem, Judy Collins (her albums seemed to be everywher and her songs were a backdrop to my days), Kris Kristofferson, Jann Wenner (of Rolling Stone magazine), Dick Gregory and many, many others.
He doesn't forget the tragedies of that time, either, and quotes both Dylan and Lennon in his opening to the book. If you are looking at a definitive book on the Sixties, you'll find a stance here that isn't decided about the final impact of those years. Even forty years later, the author writes that it will take longer to see the Sixties with perspective. Again, I agree.
As a member of the 60s generation, I couldn't put this book down, especially as as I fully agreed with one point made by Brokaw- that the Sixties "blindsided" us with quick and startling changes, from the variety of drugs available eveywhere to women's lib.
It is hard for me to understand how others see this time, the ones who didn't live through it, but I felt this book did a super job of encompassing many of the key events and it certainly set off waves of memories in my brain. I suggest you pick up a copy of this, sit down and let this author take you back in time. I got a shock when I saw the words "forty years ago" in print. It truly seems like only yesterday!
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61 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
BUST!, December 3, 2007
This review is from: Boom!: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today (Hardcover)
I am sad to say that I was disappointed By Tom Brokaw's "Boom." It is a long, ponderous, 611 page trip down memory lane to a virtual reunion of men and women who came of age in the '60s, and who offer a mishmash of views regarding their lives and times, then and now.
Some of their stories and recollections ring more credibly than others, but there is too little analysis from these personal accounts, especially by Brokaw, who wonders continually about the meaning of the riddle of the 60's, but provides no personal conclusions despite his ringside seat to the events, and all that has happened since. I was clearly expecting more.
Here's an example of what I mean. For all their magnificent accomplishments, the so called "greatest generation," were also the parents of the baby boomers. How, in fewer than 20 years, did their collective sense of duty, honor and patriotism diminish so greatly into a National epidemic of sex, drugs, rock and roll and lack of personal accountability among the Boomers? Were the WWII heroes great at taking orders and making war but not so good at parenting, or openly communicating with their children? Does this make the "greatest generation" less great? Brokaw's thesis could/should have begun there. What changed in the culture, and when did it happen, or why so suddenly?
I am saying this as a card carrying member of the baby boom generation - born in 1947, graduated from college in 1969, and, like so many other millions of my generation, an eye witness to all that went on then and since.
Just consider for a moment that the 60's began with the inauguration of John Kennedy, not his assassination as Brokaw contends. JFK's famous "Ask not what your country can do for you ..." inaugural exhortation was actually preceded only a few minutes earlier by his bold assurance that , "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty" - quite a broad, yet popular mandate at the time. What was fomenting within the culture of the Nation that JFK did not see when he delivered that message? Was it his assassination that alone changed the country's (including the greatest generation's) call to duty, or was it much more? Was it that the event and aftermath were televised? To me, the lack of analysis on this point is a flaw.
And, this is important, because when I think of the 60's, I think of Vietnam, the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Watergate and the assassinations. I think about the advent of THE PILL (never mentioned) and the rise of the media.
The assassinations are really covered in depth, because Brokaw's list of virtual reunioneers could remember how they felt when they occurred. And yet, everybody who lived during this period can specifically remember their where and when. Vietnam is redundantly, if inartfully, contrasted to Iraq. OK - got it.
But, shouldn't Brokaw have investigated how a country that had been consecutively led by such esteemed leaders - historical giants - such as Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and [potentially] Kennedy could be so disappointingly managed by historical lightweights Johnson, Ford, Nixon and Carter? And, what have been their hangover effects on the baby boomers, particularly Presidents Clinton and Bush? Has their hubris and arrogance and contempt for the people they govern(ed) been born from the roots of causes leading to the fractious Democratic Convention of 1968?
Maybe it is easier to write a history of the 1860's than the 1960's because there are far fewer people around who can recall or dispute the important events of those times. As a baby boomer, I know that many of the the events of the 60's will influence our generation for the next 30 years, or until enough of us die off to allow another generation to hold sway.
But a book such as this demands analysis to go along with the virtual observations of people, famous and random, whose recall and feelings are arguably no better than any of the millions who also endured those turbulent times.
- Did the 60's permanently eliminate the idea of trust in government?
- Did the rise of the media with their "gotcha" mentality lead to distrust of our leaders?
- Did the 60's create the me-first greed ethos that has overtaken corporate management?
- Did they inadverdently re-segregate people into too many small sub-groups of "victims," each equally eager to play their "card" to obtain justice?
- Did they enable society to reduce standards and lower personal accountability - essentially reversing Kennedy's call for patriotism to "Ask your country what it can do for you, ask not what you can do for your country ..."?
- ... and, has all the lowering of standards as a means of appeasing a variety of victims' groups also lowered the Country's ability to compete in a global economy?
- Net net, were the 60's good for the overall long term well being of America?
After seeing Brokaw discussing his book on television, I was expecting to read his analysis and opinions - after all, the book is 611 pages. Perhaps Mr. Brokaw is what he is, and DeToqville he is not. Too bad. "Boom" is history by anecdote, and unfortunately a Bust.
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