The Times Were a Changin': The Sixties Reader [Paperback]

Debi Unger (Author), Irwin Unger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0609803379 | ISBN-13: 978-0609803370 | Publication Date: July 21, 1998 | Edition: 1

This is a must-have anthology of the milestone speeches, manifestos, court decisions, and groundbreaking journalism of the Sixties. No other period in American history has been more liberating, more confusing, more unforgettable, and had a more direct impact on the way we navigated the profound changes that swept over the country in the following three decades.
        
From Betty Friedan to Barry Goldwater, from the formidable presence of the Kennedy brothers to the unimaginable influence of Woodstock, Pulitzer prize-winning author Irwin Unger and journalist Debi Unger present the complexities of a volatile and tumultuous decade, while explaining how and why each significant event took place and how it shifted the country's consciousness.
        
From the antiwar movement to the moon race, from the burgeoning counterculture to the Warren and Berger courts, and from the civil rights movement to the 1968 presidential campaign, The Times Were a Changin' will tantalize and confound readers, while inspiring and enraging them as well. The Ungers provide us with a better understanding of the strategy and maneuvering of the 1960s war games--from the Bay of Pigs to the Tet Offensive. And the pieces they have chosen help us define the current of social intolerance that plagues our country to this day.
        
Balancing the controversial issues of the times with an even hand, the Ungers give equal time to William F. Buckley and Abbie Hoffman, Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey, the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King, Jr., compiling an anthology that supplies rhyme and reason to a decade that never ceases to amaze us, endless in its capacity to be explored and understood.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With a certain inevitability, the editors cite A Tale of Two Cities when saying of the 1960s, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Reading this varied and eclectic volume brings back often forgotten or submerged memories of the past. This is not meant, however, only for those people who lived through the '60s. Luckily, the Ungers?Irwin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of history at NYU, and Debi, a journalist?have pulled together smart extracts couched in extensive contexts. For example, their look at the economy examines the influence of Michael Harrington's The Other America on JFK and on LBJ's "War on Poverty." Their look at Kennedy and his assassination includes both the Warren Report and Theodore White's Life magazine article that created the myth of Camelot. The Ungers cover the politics of the New Left (with emphasis on the Free Speech Movement, the riots at Columbia University in 1968, and the Weathermen), the New Right (featuring the John Birch Society, Billy James Hargis and Barry Goldwater) and the civil rights movement (highlighting Brown v. Board of Education, Bull Connor and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.). The New Feminism is analyzed in the writings of Betty Friedan, the creation of NOW and the politics of the vaginal orgasm. The Cold War gets a thorough going over, with a recap of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which led to vast expansion of America's role in Vietnam. This is a book that will bring back memories for aging hippies and enlighten their progeny, who missed all the excitement.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

New York University historian Irwin Unger (The Best of Intentions, LJ 4/1/96) and journalist Debi Unger, who with Irwin coauthored 1968: The Turning Point (LJ 10/15/88), compile an anthology illustrating the social, cultural, and political events that made the 1960s distinctive in American history. The Ungers present nearly 60 letters, manifestos, reports, speeches, essays, articles, and court decisions (e.g., Letter to the New Left, The Great Society speech, NOW Bill of Rights, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and The Conscience of a Conservative) arranged in 12 chapters that include "The Counterculture," "The New Feminism," "The Moon Race," and "Election '68." The Ungers succinctly explain the historical context of the documents in each chapter introduction. Given its breadth and balance but absence of a bibliography, this collection works best as an introductory survey for American history courses. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.?Charles L. Lumpkins, Pennsylvania State Univ., College Station
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1 edition (July 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609803379
• ISBN-13: 978-0609803370
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impressive Collection Of Sixties Documents!, December 8, 2003

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Times Were a Changin': The Sixties Reader (Paperback)

For students of the counterculture and the sixties in general, and for those interested in learning more about the turbulent times and momentous social, political, and cultural events swirling through the 1960s, this book offers a plethora of articles, speeches, and eye-witness accounts of the myriad of speeches, declarations, and court decisions marking that topsy-turvy decade. Indeed, no decade in the 20th century was so pock-marked with mass protest, social excitement, or utter confusion than was that time, and the authors have gathered together here a commendable collection of works that help to present a number of notable perspectives on all that transpired.

The sixties were a time of confusion, liberation, and, more than anything else, a general sense of questioning conventional wisdom and common cultural practices. And the series of works presented here help to explain and describe how all these competing shouts and movements amid the many streams of issues and concerns helped to form the changes that literally changed the social and cultural landscape of contemporary America forever. There are articles here that reveal much about a wide spectrum of contravening forces, from the anti-war movement to the influence of Woodstock on the public imagination, from the civil rights movement to the landing of American astronauts on the moon, and from politicians and spokesmen as varied as Barry Goldwater on the one hand, and Abbie Hoffman on the other.

This anthology is a well thought-out effort, and covers a lot of important ground in its selections, and the authors provide the reader with a lot of research and information on issues as varied as the Bay of Pigs invasion to the infamous Tet campaign launched by the Viet Cong in early 1968, fatally changing the course of the Vietnam war. While the book is unlikely to change many minds, it does provide grist for a lot of soul-searching and rethinking of ideas about what happened during the sixties and how it still affects us to this day. It is likely to infuriate denizens of the right while confirming the predispositions of the New Left. In any event, there is no doubt it is a valuable book that accomplishes the difficult task of assembling a meaningful and useful collection of essays, speeches, and other documents concerning the truth about what happened in the 1960s and why. Enjoy!