Customer Reviews

Dissent in the Heartland: The Sixties at Indiana University (Midwestern History and Culture)

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Mary Ann Wynkoop has written the definitive history of Indiana University student dissent in the 60's. I know first-hand most of the people and events of which she writes, and can say from personal experience that her book is accurate, sensitive, and reliable. This book will be of interest not only to present and former IU students, but to anyone who is interested in the American anti-war, student protest, civil rights, and early feminist movements of that time.

I was in the thick of it from fall of 1969 through summer of 1970. I worked for the Spectator and wrote a few articles. I marched in the demos. I was part of women's liberation. It was the most important year of my life. I went from being mild-mannered grad student to a person who questioned everything. It took me years to come down from the experience of being at IU at that time. The book is a good factual account of what happened but doesn't quite convey the unbelievable experience of watching the world change in front of your eyes. It was just a wonderful time.

This book is fascinating! While I was never an activist, I was a student at Indiana University in the mid-60s, and I recall everything of what the author had to say about the times as being very accurate. When I went to I.U. as a freshman in 1963, women students still had a curfew, and male students had to take two years of compulsory ROTC. I put in my two years of ROTC (grudgingly) and then discovered that student "activists" had successfully campaigned to make it optional. It made me wish I had been more of an activist myself, and I would have been able to skip the second year of ROTC like they did! What I found most compelling about this book was the author's accounts of how student activism increased and changed after I graduated in 1967 and left the state -- wow, did it ever! This is a well-researched and well-written book and will be enjoyed particularly by anyone who is familiar with the time and place. Those who are not will also benefit from learning more about this socially and politically important era. It made me want to go back and visit Bloomington, Indiana all over again.

This well-researched book documents the fascinating 1960s, and how the dramatic societal changes in America played out on one college campus. The book is academic, but so filled with anecdotes and personalities that it is a page-turner.