1968: The Year That Rocked the World
by Mark Kurlansky
List Price:
Our Price: $7.94
You Save: $9.06 (53%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.50 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Mark KurlanskyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-01-11
ISBN: 0345455827
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of 1968: The Year That Rocked the World
Book Review: How the wonderfully idealist lunacy of the 1960s came to be
Summary: 5 Stars
It's hard to believe, looking back 40 years from our current perch of knee-jerk conservatism--when all things lefty and liberal are deemed quasi-treasonous--that there was a time in America and all over the western world, when revolution was in the air like a fragrant spring blossom and change seemed all but inevitable. "1968" is a thorough, sympathetic and well-documented look at that year's great student movements in the US, Mexico, Poland, Czechoslovakia and France. Interestingly, it's the foreign movements that I found both more interesting, partly because so little is written about non-US movements. But there was plenty going on all over the planet that year. Vaclav Havel, eventually to become Czechoslovakia's first post-Soviet president, was a playwright whose theatrical productions critiqued the ruling Soviet-sponsored regime as stridently as it could. Alexander Dubcek, the country's dull, gray apparatchik premier, surprised everyone by trying to create a socialism with a human face. The Soviet and governmental reactions to these gentle protests and commentaries was extreme and militaristic. It was at this point that young Eastern-bloc Communists, previously confident that their system of government could be reformed, realized that they had been fooled. The Soviets had no intention of realizing the supposed goals of a self-correcting, ever-improving socialism.
Given the stakes, the protests in the US, seemed almost trivial by comparison. Propelled by opposition to the Vietnam War and to overly-authoritarian college administrators, the US movements -- at Berkeley, Columbia and elsewhere -- were sincere expressions of dismay at US policy. There were legitimate grievances. Students (and young people in general) had little voice in choosing curricula or protesting the principles and positions of their universities. Kurlansky covers the Free Speech movement at Berkeley and notes its roots (sit-ins and non-violence) in the black Civil Rights movement. But contrary to the fears of many American authorities who saw Communists under every rock, most student actions in this country were almost completely unplanned and unled. The student strike at Columbia University, set off by a dispute over the university's appropriation of land owned by poor homeowners in the surrounding neighborhoods, was virtually rudderless and goal-less, a dangerous situation when tensions are high. Though student leaders were informed by a romantic and ultimately wrong-headed view of socialism in Cuba and Russia, the assumption of school authorities that the students' every random move and change of plans was part of a choreographed master plan says much about the paranoid temper of the times. Administration overreaction and lack of willingness to dialogue with students prompted violence, which led to more suppression.
1968 was the year that the Tet offensive, a disastrous defeat for the Viet Cong, was transformed into a moral victory because it laid bare the lies that US military leaders were telling then public about the war's progress. Kurlansky gives the Tet lots of ink, but events that are best remembered get relatively little space. The black-gloved protests of black athletes at the Mexico City Olympics made for dramatic photos, and shocked many Americans, but get cursory coverage here. The details of the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Bobby Kennedy barely register. Context, not an event in itself, is rightly more important to Kurlansky. He notes that King's movement and influence were ebbing as more-militant blacks had lost interest and hope in King's non-violent incrementalism. Bobby's post-1968 canonization is tempered by the realization that in spite of the hope that many had in his candidacy for president, he had been a ruthless Cold Warrior who had supported the US escalation in Vietnam, OK'd wiretaps on Dr. King and who was rather late to the anti-war game. The 1968 presidential campaign gets a fair deal of scrutiny. Nixon's win is seen as improbable, determined more by disarray on the left than by his personal charisma. A bullet eliminated Bobby, his most potent adversary; Gene McCarthy is dismissed as a hard-to-fathom, out-of-touch intellectual; Humphrey is seen as a gee-whiz pro-war goofball out of synch with the public, especially the young, who loathed him.
What I liked most about the book is that it manages to show appreciation for the idealism that inspired so many young, while also keeping a hard-headed view of the silliness of some of that idealism. The world in 1968 was a dangerous place, with Cold War realities of atomic mutual annihilation shaping governmental reactions and counter-reactions. It took courage to confront the system's shortcomings at a time of real danger, when many would rather believe the easy pieties that America and the West were the good guys in all ways. "1968" also introduced me to leaders and events I had never heard of -- including the Mexican protests that resulted in dozens or hundreds of deaths; the role of satellite technology to disseminate news quickly; the work of Polish dissident Jacek Kuron; Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the smiling, red-headed French agitator; the role of quickly-designed posters; Allan Ginsburg's support for drug use and homosexual rights that got him kicked out of Prague and Cuba; and the relative old age of youth leaders like Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman.
"1968" is an important book because its speaks of the year on its own term, not in the way it has been tamed, redefined and demonized in the decades that have passed. The issues that gripped that world were scarily real -- war, poverty, suppression of freedom and inequality. During that year, young people especially stood up to protest the inequities and hypocrisies they were forced to live under. In many cases, their stances were rejected, often violently. But it is a mistake to consider the issues irrelevant. "1968" tells it like it was to live in the year whose conflicts and controversies continue to shape our culture.
Summary of 1968: The Year That Rocked the World
To some, 1968 was the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap; avant-garde theater; the upsurge of the women?s movement; and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.In this monumental book, Mark Kurlansky brings to teeming life the cultural and political history of that pivotal year, when television?s influence on global events first became apparent, and spontaneous uprisings occurred simultaneously around the world. Encompassing the diverse realms of youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media, 1968 shows how twelve volatile months transformed who we were as a people?and led us to where we are today.
Given its broad and vibrant subject, it would be quite difficult for a writer of any proficiency to pen a boring book on 1968, and Mark Kurlansky has indeed pulled together an entertaining and enlightening popular history with 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. With the Vietnam War and Soviet repression providing sparkplugs in the East and West, student movements heated up in Berkeley, Prague, Mexico City, Paris, and dozens of other hotspots. With youth in ascendancy, music, film, and athletics became generational battlegrounds between opposition forces that couldn't be more appalled with one another. Not so fortuitously, the Summer Olympics in Mexico City and a presidential election in the United States conspired to elevate the tension higher as months passed. Kurlansky is skilled at concisely capturing the personalities behind the conflicts, whether they be heartbroken Czech leader Alexander Dubcek as Eastern Bloc troops violently suppress his nation's uprising or respected veteran newsman Walter Cronkite reluctantly editorializing against the war in Vietnam. The author is more than willing to choose heroes (the doomed Robert Kennedy) and villains (victorious presidential candidate Richard Nixon), and clearly sides with the rebels in most cases. In general, Kurlansky is more adept at covering the political front than he is the equally revolutionary arts world, and it's apparent that any chapter in this book could be expanded into a book of its own. One's expectation is that captivated readers will view 1968 as a portal into a deeper exploration of a fascinating time. --Steven Stolder
20th Century Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in 20th Century Books
Route 66: The Mother Roadby Michael Wallis
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1992-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.84
Sweet and Low: A Family Storyby Rich Cohen
Picador; Published: 2007-03-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.94
Price in other shops:
When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreamsby Bob Greene
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2008-05-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.59
Price in other shops:
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star Stateby Randolph B. Campbell
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $155.33
The Dodgers Move Westby Neil Sullivan
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1989-06-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.93
Price in other shops:
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bushby Kevin Phillips
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2004-09-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.95
Price in other shops:
Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnamby H. R. McMaster
Harper Perennial; Published: 1998-05-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.36
Price in other shops:
My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoirby John H. Richardson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-08-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoirby John H. Richardson
Harper; Published: 2005-08-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.59
Price in other shops:
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906by Simon Winchester
PBS; Harper; Published: 2005-10-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.47
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Cold War: A New Historyby John Lewis Gaddis
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2006-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.65
Price in other shops:
1968 in America: Music, Politics, Chaos, Counterculture, and the Shaping of a Generationby Charles Kaiser
Grove Press; Published: 1997-09-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
Guerrilla Warfareby Ernesto Che Guevara
bnpublishing.com; Published: 2007-10-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.25
Price in other shops:
How It All Began: The Personal Account of a West German Urban Guerrillaby Bommi Baumann
Arsenal Pulp Press; Published: 2002-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.11
Price in other shops:
1959: The Year Everything Changedby Fred Kaplan
Wiley; Published: 2010-04-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.14
Price in other shops:
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.by Martin Luther King Jr., Clayborne Carson
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2001-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Revolution at the Gates: Zizek on Lenin: The 1917 Writings (Second Edition) (Vol. The Essential Zizek)by V. I. Lenin
Verso; Published: 2011-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.57
Price in other shops:
A Rumor of Warby Philip Caputo
Holt Paperbacks; Published: 1996-11-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
1968 (New York Times)by Michael Kaufman
Roaring Brook Press; Published: 2009-01-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shellby Mark Kurlansky
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2007-01-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.59
Price in other shops: