Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The 1960s began as a decade of great promise, but it will always be remembered as one of the most tumultuous, if exhilarating, times in history. This documentary, an installment in a 10-volume set on the entire 20th century, amply shows through extensive use of news footage how President Kennedy's term in office ended violently, and how tragedy itself would emerge as a dominant theme of the decade. From urban unrest to the horrors of Vietnam, America was shaken, as was the entire world. Even bright spots of the decade, such as the civil rights movement, were marred by violence, and political assassinations, including the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., soured many people on politics entirely. Despite the tense atmosphere, there was also an undercurrent of creativity, and this video does insightfully mention that the Beatles arrived in America just 100 days after President Kennedy's assassination. Other figures of the so-called counterculture, such as Timothy Leary, are briefly profiled, and of course there's a brief film montage shot among the "flower children" of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Although not the definitive documentary on the 1960s, but this video does cover the major events and personalities of the decade in which there was so much change. --Robert J. McNamara
