Customer Reviews

Time It Was: American Stories from the Sixties

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book captures both the "spirit" and the "substance" of the 1960's. The various contributors present a multi-level photograph of an extremely turbulent and explosive time in our country's history. The book provides both "satellite landscapes" and "portrait close-ups". The balanced writing and panoply of viewpoints makes this work a "history handbook" while other published works about the 1960's seem to dissolve into gray and beige.

Even the cover art reflects the balanced approach of the book: Ms. Liberty's entire appearance reflects the palate of cultural and political views that "marked" the decade.

In reading the personal reflections of individuals who lived through this period in American History, I felt a very strong connection:

a. I wrote my college senior thesis on the May 1968 student revolts at Columbia University and the Sorbonne;
b. Having been born in 1955, I was too young to meaningfully participate in any of the events described but old enough to bear witness;

I unequivocally and enthusiastically recommend this book.

As a child of the Sixties the stories related in Time It Was are the stories of my youth. The individual reflections of so many historical events rekindled my own memories of that turbulent and important time. All of us who came of age during that decade had our physics forever impregnated by our exposure to what surely was a revolution of change in our society. As I read the book my mind was flooded with memories of those formative years in my life. As I reflect on those experiences and those times I can see how significantly my life was shaped by the music, lifestyle and general mood of my generation. Today, almost forty years after the fact, I still exhibit personality traits acquired during the Sixties. Obviously I have a more mature approach to situations now but I still have a deep, unchanged distrust of the "establishment" that sometimes rises to the surface. I strongly recommend Time It Was to any member of the younger generation interested in learning about their parents or grandparent's formulative years. I promise it will stir the emotions in all who shared those days and remind you of how important to us those days were.

Having been born after the Sixties, my interpretations of the period were generally about sex, drugs & rock 'n roll, political assassinations and the unpopular war in Vietnam. All familiar topics, blended into a worn cliched pattern by the media. Like a tie-dye shirt you bought at Wal-Mart, rather than from a real hippie at a Grateful Dead show.

This book covers the expected flash-point moments from the period, as well as many other corners of the social and political landscape. Best of all, it was not written by a staff of historians, churning out textbook after textbook. These are real stories by real people who lived in that period. Not all of them survived it. A few are minor celebrities because of their involvement in key events. Many are regular folks who made big decisions at a young age, perhaps not realizing at the time the net effect of their generation on the world. All are storytellers with a personal tale to tell.

You don't have to be a hippie to enjoy and learn from this book.