1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America [NOOK Book]

Be the first to write a review

Overview

1973 marked the end of the 1960s and the birth of a new cultural sensibility. A year of shattering political crisis, 1973 was defined by defeat in Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, the oil crisis and the Watergate hearings. It was also a year of remarkable creative ferment. From landmark movies such as The Exorcist, Mean Streets, and American Graffiti to seminal books such as Fear of Flying and Gravity's Rainbow, from the proto-punk band the New York Dolls to the first ever reality TV show, The American Family, the cultural ...
See more details below
1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America

Available on NOOK devices and apps  
  • Nook Devices
  • NOOK HD/HD+ Tablet
  • NOOK
  • NOOK Color
  • NOOK Tablet
  • Tablet/Phone
  • NOOK for Windows 8 Tablet
  • NOOK for iOS
  • NOOK for Android
  • NOOK Kids for iPad
  • PC/Mac
  • NOOK for Windows 8
  • NOOK for PC
  • NOOK for Mac
  • NOOK Study
  • NOOK for Web

Want a NOOK? Explore Now

NOOK Book (eBook)
$10.19
BN.com price
(Save 15%)$11.99 List Price

More About This Book

Overview

1973 marked the end of the 1960s and the birth of a new cultural sensibility. A year of shattering political crisis, 1973 was defined by defeat in Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, the oil crisis and the Watergate hearings. It was also a year of remarkable creative ferment. From landmark movies such as The Exorcist, Mean Streets, and American Graffiti to seminal books such as Fear of Flying and Gravity's Rainbow, from the proto-punk band the New York Dolls to the first ever reality TV show, The American Family, the cultural artifacts of the year reveal a nation in the middle of a serious identity crisis. 1973 Nervous Breakdown offers a fever chart of a year of uncertainty and change, a year in which post-war prosperity crumbled and modernism gave way to postmodernism in a lively and revelatory analysis of one of the most important periods in the second half of the 20th century.
Read More Show Less

Editorial Reviews

Jonathan Yardley
Thus the way to read 1973 Nervous Breakdown is to ignore the attempts at pigeon-holing and concentrate on Killen's broader arguments. Two of them strike me as especially sound. One is that, during this time, "American youth was perceived as under assault, alarmingly fragile, in need of increasingly extreme forms of intervention." Killen seizes on Patricia Hearst and the emotions her abduction aroused as emblematic of this, and perhaps he's right: "This story offered itself up to the American public as the consummate account of snapping: a cautionary tale about the radical transformation of the self under the influence of a powerful cult of personality and action." Many young Americans were "vulnerable to strange belief-systems" -- Moonies, Hare Krishnas, extreme fundamentalist Christian groups -- making this a matter of great concern to parents and authorities. The astonishing popularity of the film "The Exorcist," with its nightmares of demonic possession, was evidence of both the fascination and the apprehension that this phenomenon aroused.
— The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
According to CCNY assistant history professor Killen, 1973 was "a cultural watershed, a moment of major realignments and shifts in American politics, culture, and society," and he examines these transformations in a series of essays. Andy Warhol's Interview magazine chronicled America's obsession with celebrity culture, from its homage to screen icons like Marilyn Monroe to its sympathetic portrayal of gender-bending trash-rock band the New York Dolls. The year 1973 also saw the rise of Ted Patrick, who claimed to have deprogrammed over 100 young people who had fallen into the clutches of religious cults, and the transformation of Vietnam War POWs into heroes as a Watergate-embroiled Nixon sought to bask in their reflected glory. The best pieces focus on PBS's trailblazing reality TV show An American Family, and the media's progressive invasion of American lives. Disasters and hijackings made air travel a flash point for extreme fear. Although his prose is frequently opaque and stilted, and his selection of 1973 seems arbitrary (why not 1974, the year of Patty Hearst's kidnapping and Nixon's resignation?), the perceptive Killen sheds welcome light on our collective experience. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Yes, here is another serious book that extols the significance of the 1970s in American cultural, political, and social history. Unlike books that cover the decade (e.g., Edward D. Berkowitz's Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies), Killen (history, City Coll. of New York) focuses on just one pivotal year that included such landmarks as the Watergate hearings, Roe v. Wade, the Arab oil embargo, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. There was also a rise in urban decay, violent crime, drug use, and neoconservatism. Killen deftly identifies "signposts" as he surveys this "moment of major realignment and shifts in American politics, culture, and society." He looks at the movies, novels, and music of that year (e.g., Scorsese, De Lillo, the New York Dolls) to discover interesting connections with the year's political events. Long essays examine airplane crashes and hijackings, the PBS series An American Family, the release of Vietnam War POWs, religious cults and deprogramming, Andy Warhol's cult of celebrity, the impact of American Graffiti and Badlands, and Watergate and the appeal of conspiracy theories. The result is a high-definition snapshot, both nostalgic and perceptive, of a transitional time. In an epilog, Killen uses the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army to explain the rise of Reagan conservatism. An important contribution to the literature of American studies; highly recommended for academic and large public libraries.-Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, PA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
As those who were there know, 1973 wasn't just about platforms and the Bay City Rollers. It was much weirder than all that, as Killen (History/City College of New York) chronicles, arguing that the year was a watershed during which the countercultural glories of the '60s crashed into the autism of the '70s, which would unfold in the reactionary '80s. Killen eschews firsthand memories, so he may not have been around to observe the weirdness up close, but he gamely re-creates the time; his opening montage of the death of baseball great Roberto Clemente, the opening of DFW and the hijacking rage is lovely. Whether 1973 was really a watershed is debatable, and Killen wisely brackets events with glimpses of '72 and '74, but he makes interesting connections along the way. It's not news that An American Family, starring Lance Loud and his unhappy kin, was the first reality show; it is news to learn that Loud, no mere documentary subject, was playing to the camera in ways that he had learned from Andy Warhol-and not just from studying The Factory from afar, but from having corresponded with Warhol directly. (Those precocious teenagers of teenage-centric 1973!) The birth of media addiction aside, Killen makes a winning case, too, for seeing 1973 as a harbinger of our times in the matter of belief, charting the rise not just of Me Decade cults such as est but also of fundamentalist Christianity and offshoots such as the Children of God and the Moonies. There are a few false notes along the way (for one, the New York Dolls were never really popular, even in New York), but the author does a good job overall of keeping his narrative on track with his thesis, which should make no one nostalgic for thetime of the SLA and dawning disco. A smart if somewhat disjointed blend of social history and cultural criticism, far truer to the time than David Frum's tsk-tsking How We Got Here (2000).
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781596919990
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
  • Publication date: 12/10/2008
  • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 320
  • Sales rank: 896,564
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.25 (h) x 0.81 (d)
  • File size: 3 MB

Meet the Author

Andreas Killen is Assistant Professor of History at the City College of New York. He is the author of Berlin Electropolis, and his writing has appeared in Salon and the New York Times Magazine.
Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
( 0 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously
    If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
    Why is this product inappropriate?
    Comments (optional)