57 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The antidote I've been waiting for to arm my kids against 60s-worship, July 31, 2009
For decades I've been telling people that America in the "sixties" were not what the media depicts as the sixties, but a much more complicated place - that people with long hair (like I had) walking along the road in a place like Vermont in 1969 (the sixties didn't get more "late" than 1969) had beer cans thrown at them, where in most parts of the country and for most years of the decade, the "sixties" was no more than a ripple disturbing the surface.
Leaf's book is invaluable at providing the facts and figures and anecdotes that show that I was right - that I wasn't dreaming. Of course it's an immense subject, but Leaf writes authortitavely and wittily about a well-chosen range of subjects.
The highest praise I can give it is that my little girls, aged 13 and 15, have taken it up to their room and are poring over it - and laughing over what their school teachers (too young to have experienced the decade) have been solemnly misinforming them about for years.
Get it and save your children's sanity and intellect - and if you are a child of the sixties, the soundness of your own memory.
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41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"If you remember the sixties, you weren't really there", August 2, 2009
If this Robin Williams line is true, so is its corollary: If you where there, you don't really remember it. Baby Boomers all were there and in too many cases they were formed by that decade and what they recall of it. And it turns out they really don't remember it. As long as the Largest Generation retains the commanding heights of much cultural and academic production, that is a problem.
Jonathan Leaf's The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties is part of the solution. In 13 short, yet devastating, chapters covering everything from the sexual revolution to movies to Camelot to the nascent conservative movement, he demonstrates conclusively that everything most people think they know when asked about the Sixties is wrong.
Each of the phenomena described as universal Sixties experiences either occurred principally in earlier decades (e.g., civil rights, feminism), later decades (e.g., rock and roll), existed only a fringe or elite phenomenon (e.g., hippies and Haight-Ashbury), or is remembered in such a distorted or incomplete way as to approach falsehood (e.g., the moon landing, Camelot, many more). Just learning the facts about these well justifies buying and reading this book.
But even readers familiar the actual events of the Sixties will find reading rewarding. First, there is the author's erudite and accessible style which will occasion more than frequent chuckles even when recounting familiar facts. Second, the book is filled with facets and sidelights which will come as enlightening surprises even to those consider themselves well-informed.
For example, Malcolm X was a gay hustler--did that chapter of his Autobiography get cut? César Chávez and Tom Tancredo would have seen eye to eye on illegal immigration--does the University of California know that it closes down for a day every year to honor what most of its constituencies would consider a "hatemonger"?
Every baby boomer with a tendency to reminisce along the lines of the stereotypical images of the Sixties needs to read this highly entertaining debunking of Sixties mythologies. So should anybody who might come under their influence.
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of fun, explains a lot!, August 7, 2009
I always wondered how my parents managed to miss the Sixties. According to Jonathan Leaf, they were in very good company. Easy to read, fun, disturbing, and provocative, PIC '60s offers a counter weight for those of us who didn't live through America's best promoted, least experienced decade.
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