Debating the 1960s: Liberal, Conservative, and Radical ... (ISBN 074252213X)

Recovering the 60s:
Although obviously intended for use in the college classroom, Debating the 1960s is an absorbing read for all who were in their 20s or 30s in the 60s and seriously interested in public affairs. It has two authors--both historians and professors--but it avoids the dull, homogenized prose often characteristic of such joint projects by being composed of two well-written essays, one (by Steigerwald ) on the "Liberal-Radical" side and the other (by Flamm) on the "Liberal-Conservative" side. Each essay has its own set of notes and a brief selection of relevant documents, and there is in common a list of selected readings and an index. From multiple points of view, much ground is covered--the civil rights movement, Cuba, the Cold War, Kennedy, Buckley, Martin Luther King, Johnson, the assassinations, the Great Society, Goldwater, the Viet Nam War, counterculture, the rebirth of conservatism, the rise of Reagan, and much more. For contemporary students (who may know little or nothing about the period) Debating the 1960s captures the essence and conveys the excitement; for those of us who lived through those years it provides ample food for reflection about how and why we got where we are now--for better and for worse.