Sixties people [Hardcover]

Jane Stern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1990

Cultural-study examination of the 1960s decade which looks at its icons, ideologies, music, types and images as well as evaluating its significance.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This witty and frivolous evocation of surfers, political protesters, Beatlemaniacs and others who made the '60s era what it was looks backward in fond reverie with occasionally breathless prose. The Sterns ( Elvis World ) don't intend to turn a sobersided historical perspective on their own youthful heyday; in celebrating the '60s spirit of untrammeled individualism, they compose giddy set pieces. A chapter on "perky girls" ("enchanted pixies," embodied by actress Marlo Thomas) is deliciously flirtatious, echoing its gigglesome subjects--but the same tone becomes inane and condescending in championing the "young vulgarians" of working-class South Philadelphia and the Bronx (they "positively dripped with splendiferous cheapness") and reducing the beliefs of the Black Panthers to mere "trendy thought" (the Panthers' appeal "can be understood by looking at their taste in hats"). Few writers can top the Sterns when they consider food and its milieu, but their wistful, playful tryst with nostalgia here is equal parts fluff and skill. Photos not seen by PW. 30,000 first printing.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

YA-- Many people associate the decade of the 60s with the hippies, forgetting the surfers, playboys, folkniks, and others whose lifestyle choices were also part of the colorful fabric of that era. The Sterns present the 60s as a time when people were smitten with new identities, forever discarding one identity for another in search of the real meaning of life. Thus, their sweep through popular culture includes an impressive variety of identities, exploring what is laughable and what is profound about each group's philosophy, music, manner of dress, and general lifestyle. Not forgotten are the vivacious pixies of the decade, such as Mary Tyler Moore and Marlo Thomas, or "the young vulgarians," Elvis and Priscilla Presley look-alikes who thronged the dance floors of Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Concluding with a chapter on "Mr. and Mrs. Average," this book is the best of its kind, going beyond trivia to analyze the phenomenal variety of the period's personalities. This is not just a collection of photographs, as are so many books on various decades. Although some of the photographs are uncaptioned, a confusing practice, their inclusion further enhances the substantial text. Students searching for material on the ever-mythical 60s will hit pay dirt here.
- Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris County Public Library, Houston
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan; First Edition. states edition (1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0333475186
• ISBN-13: 978-0333475188
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,770,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile Reading, May 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Sixties people (Hardcover)

I first picked this book up in search of some information about Woodstock. After a thorough cover-to-cover reading of this book, I would gladly say that this is a winner. Humorous, engaging, fascinating, it's worth picking up and skimming, if not actually sitting down to read it. A fun read, with lots of little-known information about the 60s and the people of that decade. A must for anybody interested in the 60s.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Introduction to the Culture of the Sixties, July 30, 2003

By 

Mark K. Mcdonough "Mark McDonough" (Reston, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sixties People (Hardcover)

I lived through the Sixties (on the younger end) and have read many many books on the subject. This is far and away the best book introduction to the cultural aspects of the 60s. Particularly valuable is the broad focus -- this is not just another re-hash (as it were) of the hippy stereotype. The book talks about hippies and their more political brethren the "freaks," but it also includes chapters on early 60s types -- surfers, party animals, and the folks with big hair and leather jackets who bought (and inspired) all those girl group records.

Highly recommended both for those who were there and those who weren't. It's entertainingly written too, and has lots of great pictures. Not a replacement for more serious scholarly tomes if you want to go in that direction later, but it's a great map of the territory.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Good Book Runs Off the Rails, May 4, 2006

By 

T. Berner (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sixties People (Hardcover)

For about half of this book, the authors do a good job of explaining some of the subgroups of the 1960s: surfers, "folkniks," etc. The book tells you more than you want to know, perhaps, about things like creating a beehive hairdo, but until the last three chapters, it is fair minded and dispassionate about the strengths and weaknesses of various subcultures.

When the 1960s became the '60s, however, the authors leave all sense of fairness and accuracy behind. They are overly harsh on the hippies and drip with contempt for "Mr. and Mrs. Average," the bewildered Americans trying to make sense of it all. The biggest problem with the "Mr. and Mrs. Average" subgroup, however, is that it isn't a subgroup at all and actually comprised a large number of cultural subgroups who have nothing in common with each other.

But the authors really drop the ball when they talk about the "Rebels." To hear them tell it, the Black Panther were just making a fashion statement and they were inexplicably hounded by the police. Most of the Panthers were felons and at those "children's breakfasts" which the authors praise, the Panthers distributed coloring books to six year olds explaining how to kill "pigs."

The authors say that the Weather Underground never killed anyone but themselves, in an accidental bombing in Greenwich Village (not bothering to mention that that bomb, a very powerful one, was intended to blow up a dance hall near Fort Dix attended by a bunch of 18 year old draftees and their high school sweethearts. There were lots of people killed by the Weather Underground: a mathematics grad student in Madison, Wisconsin, police and armored car guards in upstate New York and so on. If the authors linger over the deaths of every "rebel" killed by the police, they owe it to their readers to indicate that it wasn't just because the "pigs" had a problem with their clothing.

You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the authors blow.