Customer Reviews

The Sixties: From Memory to History

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For many of us born around 1960, the decade of the 60's may be lost in the minds of our parents or those fortunate or unfortunate to live through this challenging and exciting era in American History. David Farber has done an excellent job in assembling a collection of essays on various themes from the sixties. (Liberalism,Vietnam,Civil Rights,Cultural Revolution) Credit should also be given for the extensive, if not exhaustive, notes at the end of each chapter. The notes are filled with additional sources for the ambitious reader to continue studying the sixties. Overall, a great introduction to an important time period with excellent pointers to additional sources..Kent H. Manno Morristown, NJ

Anyone who lived through the tumult of the 1960s will enjoy this history focusings on the recollections of a wide spectrium of people interviewed about their experiences and recollections of those turbulent times. Asking some provocative and thought-provoking open-style interview questions, the authors fashion together a fascinating and entertaining study that centers on the anecdotal reminiscences of ordianry people who lived through some interesting events ranging from the civil rights sit-in of the early years to participation in communes within the burgeoning counterculture. One of the most disarming aspects of the book is its willingness to let the respondents speak for themselves, which has the salutary effect of making the individual recollections come to life.

In this sense the book both celebrates and rues the various events and historical events, most often through the common words and phrases of the people who were, in fact, eyewitnesses to almost everything they describe. Given the lack of such testimony relating to that era, it is indeed terrific to have it so recorded and systematically organized as it is here. Here we have it all, from activists in the anti-war movement to veterans from the same conflict, from denizens of the counterculture to those who remained within the more comfortable orbits of conventional mainstream societies. The reader will find absorbing information regarding everything from the feminist movement to gay pride, from student protest to the free speech movement. One finds almost every aspect of the sixties wondeully reconstructed and recalled here, so varied was the subject matter and tenor of the individual responses. This is an interesting book, and one anyone who lived through the times might well enjoy.

Excellent book, is like going down memory lane and I loved every step I took. Buy it, you'll love it too if the 60s meant anything at all to you.