The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade

by Gerard J. DeGroot

Overview

“If you remember the Sixties,” quipped Robin Williams, “you weren’t there.” That was, of course, an oblique reference to the mind-bending drugs that clouded perception—yet time has proven an equally effective hallucinogen. This book revisits the Sixties we forgot or somehow failed to witness. In a kaleidoscopic global tour of the decade, Gerard DeGroot reminds us that the “Ballad of the Green Beret” outsold “Give Peace a Chance,” that the Students for a Democratic Society were outnumbered by Young Americans for Freedom, that revolution was always a pipe dream, and that the Sixties belong to Reagan and de Gaulle more than to Kennedy and Dubcek.

The Sixties Unplugged shows how opportunity was squandered, and why nostalgia for the decade has obscured sordidness and futility. DeGroot returns us to a time in which idealism, tolerance, and creativity gave way to cynicism, chauvinism, and materialism. He presents the Sixties as a drama acted out on stages around the world, a theater of the absurd in which China’s Cultural Revolution proved to be the worst atrocity of the twentieth century, the Six-Day War a disaster for every nation in the Middle East, and a million slaughtered Indonesians martyrs to greed.

The Sixties Unplugged restores to an era the prevalent disorder and inconvenient truths that longing, wistfulness, and distance have obscured. In an impressionistic journey through a tumultuous decade, DeGroot offers an object lesson in the distortions nostalgia can create as it strives to impose order on memory and value on mayhem.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674034631
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/30/2010
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Gerard J. DeGroot is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. His many books include The First World War and A Noble Cause?: America and the Vietnam War.

Table of Contents

• Introduction

Preludes

• Torgau: A Brief Moment of Sanity
• At Home: The Generation Gap

Premonitions

• On the Airwaves: Transistor Radios
• San Francisco: A Collection of Angels
• Howling at the World
• Worcester: The Pill
• The Congo: Democracy Murdered
• The Old Bailey: Lady Chatterley on trial
• Washington: New Frontiers

Hard Rain

• Sharpeville: Apartheid Is a Way of Death
• Bay of Pigs: It Seemed Like a Good Idea
• Berlin: The Wall
• Ap Bac: Bad News from a Place Called Vietnam
• Novaya Zemlya and Cuba: Big Bombs

All Gone to Look for America

• Albany and Birmingham: Lessons of Nonviolence
• Port Huron: Students for a Democratic Society
• Washington: I Have a Dream
• Arlington National Cemetery: Kennedy and Vietnam

Call Out the Instigators

• Duxbury: Rachel Carson
• Harlem: Malcolm X
• Havana: Che
• Miami: The Greatest
• Chelsea: Mary Quant

Universal Soldiers

• Tonkin Gulf: Carte Blanche
• Sinai: The Six-Day War
• Biafra: The Problem of Africa
• Guangxi Province: Cannibals for Mao

And in the Streets . . .

• Margate: Mods versus Rockers
• Watts: Long Hot Summer
• Berkeley: Free Speech
• Amsterdam: Provo Pioneers
• Selma: Black Power

Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

• Millbrook: Acid Dreams
• In Bed: Sex and Love
• Liverpool: The Beatles
• Manchester: The Battle for Bob Dylan
• Woodstock: A Festival Yes; A Nation No

Everybody Get Together

• Sharon: Young Americans for Freedom
• London: Love Is All You Need
• San Francisco: It’s Free Because It’s Yours!
• Greenwich Village: Yippie!
• Oakland: The Black Panthers
• Delano: Boycott Grapes

Turn, Turn, Turn

• Saigon: Tet
• Atlantic City: From Miss America to Ms. World
• Greenwich Village: Stonewall
• San Francisco: Summer of Rape

Gone to Graveyards

• Memphis: The Death of King
• Prague: Short Spring
• Los Angeles: The Death of Hope
• Mexico City: Shooting Students

You Say You Want a Revolution?

• Berlin: Rudi the Red
• New York: Up against the Wall, Motherfucker!
• Paris: Absurdists Revolt
• London: A Very British Revolution

Wilted Flowers

• Vatican: Humanae Vitae
• Mayfair: Casualties of the Cultural Revolution
• People’s Park: The Future in a Vacant Lot
• San Diego: A Burning Desire to End the War

Meet the New Boss

• Jakarta: A Perfect Little Coup
• Hollywood: Takin’ Care of Business
• Los Angeles: A Goddamned Electable Person
• St. Louis: Curt Flood versus Baseball

No Direction Home

• Altamont: The Day the Music Died
• Chappaquiddick: A Career Drowned
• The Moon: Magnificent Desolation
• Greenwich Village: You Don’t Need a Weatherman
• Old Bailey: Another Obscenity Trial

• Epitaph: It’s Life’s Illusions I Recall

• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

What People are Saying About This

A truly international history that crosses geographical boundaries in all directions. No other book covers such a diverse array of events with such facility and verve. Vivid and compelling, The Sixties Unplugged captures the frenetic energy and disorientation of the decade.

William McKeen

Without sentiment or tears, The Sixties Unplugged takes a fresh look at that insane and wonderful sore-thumb decade of the 20th Century. A thoroughly researched work of history, it is also a good story, beautifully told. --(William McKeen, author of Outlaw Journalist)

Jeremi Suri

A truly international history that crosses geographical boundaries in all directions. No other book covers such a diverse array of events with such facility and verve. Vivid and compelling, The Sixties Unplugged captures the frenetic energy and disorientation of the decade.

--(Jeremi Suri, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison)

Editorial Reviews

DeGroot makes an important contribution to the literature through his inclusion of events outside the U.S. in the 1960s.

Choice - K. B. Butter

DeGroot debunks this decade with bravura, relishing the ironies...[He] whirls through the era with a kind of manic energy...There is much to admire about this book, which is scrupulously researched and provocative. I thought I knew this period well, having lived through it intensely, but I was often surprised by the details that DeGroot churns up. He adds a great deal of nuance to memories...There was something fresh and strange about this brief era, and I refuse to let go of that. But I acknowledge that one must always keep its advances in perspective, and DeGroot's book—despite its dizzying aspect—goes a long way toward providing it.

Chronicle of Higher Education - Jay Parini

In his meaty, rich text, DeGroot argues that the real spirit of the '60s has been lost in a deluge of nostalgia. The "free" decade, the freak show, was one in which China's Cultural Revolution proved to be one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. The sixties, he argues, were shaped more by the election of Reagan as the governor of California than by Kennedy. We've "chosen" to forget about Sharpeville, the Gaza Strip and Jakarta. The so-called "revolution" of the sixties, as we know it, didn't really exist. History, he argues, is not necessarily an accurate representation of what happened—but the way we view that it happened. His book, disguised as a coffee table "light read," is sure to spark controversy. It is, in effect a history book. Only in it, DeGroot says what few history books have the guts to.

Parade - Caitlin O'Toole

The Sixties Unplugged is a bracing blast for those who want their history unadulterated and straight up. Gerard J. DeGroot's freewheeling book offers 67 snapshots of this discordant decade, from raunchy Berkeley to barbwired Berlin...DeGroot's picaresque journey visits all the sacred shrines familiar to those who lived through the decade or heard about it at granddad's knee: People's Park in Berkeley, the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, the bomb cellars of Greenwich Village, the battlefield in South Vietnam and the bra-bonfire outside the Miss America pageant. But the author also includes less familiar stops on the Magical Mystery Tour, reminding readers that the Sixties with a capital S did not belong to America alone. DeGroot's disparate vignettes are grouped into 15 chapters that show that the unrest reached far beyond our coasts, washing onto the shores of Mexico, Britain, Indonesia, Israel, France, China and indeed everywhere that people carried placards or transistor radios.

San Diego Union-Tribune - Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman

A truly international history that crosses geographical boundaries in all directions. No other book covers such a diverse array of events with such facility and verve. Vivid and compelling, The Sixties Unplugged captures the frenetic energy and disorientation of the decade.

Jeremi Suri

The cover art is swirly and psychedelic, but inside the author makes some trenchant points. [DeGroot] argues that in the 1960s, cynicism trumped hope and materialism quashed creativity, despite what people remember.

Vancouver Sun

DeGroot seeks to debunk the popular legend of the Sixties as a golden age of peace, love and understanding...He has written a book containing a little something to offend—and enlighten—just about everyone...DeGroot's The Sixties Unplugged stands as an informative, well-researched, mostly on-the-mark response to the claims of graying Baby Boomers about the wall-to-wall wonderfulness of that long, strange trip of a decade.

Washington Times - James E. Person Jr.

Without sentiment or tears, The Sixties Unplugged takes a fresh look at that insane and wonderful sore-thumb decade of the 20th Century. A thoroughly researched work of history, it is also a good story, beautifully told.

William McKeen

In his meaty, rich text, DeGroot argues that the real spirit of the '60s has been lost in a deluge of nostalgia. The "free" decade, the freak show, was one in which China's Cultural Revolution proved to be one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. The sixties, he argues, were shaped more by the election of Reagan as the governor of California than by Kennedy. We've "chosen" to forget about Sharpeville, the Gaza Strip and Jakarta. The so-called "revolution" of the sixties, as we know it, didn't really exist. History, he argues, is not necessarily an accurate representation of what happened--but the way we view that it happened. His book, disguised as a coffee table "light read," is sure to spark controversy. It is, in effect a history book. Only in it, DeGroot says what few history books have the guts to.--Caitlin O'Toole "Parade" (3/23/2008 12:00:00 AM)

The Sixties Unplugged is a bracing blast for those who want their history unadulterated and straight up. Gerard J. DeGroot's freewheeling book offers 67 snapshots of this discordant decade, from raunchy Berkeley to barbwired Berlin...DeGroot's picaresque journey visits all the sacred shrines familiar to those who lived through the decade or heard about it at granddad's knee: People's Park in Berkeley, the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, the bomb cellars of Greenwich Village, the battlefield in South Vietnam and the bra-bonfire outside the Miss America pageant. But the author also includes less familiar stops on the Magical Mystery Tour, reminding readers that the Sixties with a capital S did not belong to America alone. DeGroot's disparate vignettes are grouped into 15 chapters that show that the unrest reached far beyond our coasts, washing onto the shores of Mexico, Britain, Indonesia, Israel, France, China and indeed everywhere that people carried placards or transistor radios.--Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman "San Diego Union-Tribune" (3/23/2008 12:00:00 AM)

DeGroot debunks this decade with bravura, relishing the ironies...[He] whirls through the era with a kind of manic energy...There is much to admire about this book, which is scrupulously researched and provocative. I thought I knew this period well, having lived through it intensely, but I was often surprised by the details that DeGroot churns up. He adds a great deal of nuance to memories...There was something fresh and strange about this brief era, and I refuse to let go of that. But I acknowledge that one must always keep its advances in perspective, and DeGroot's book--despite its dizzying aspect--goes a long way toward providing it.--Jay Parini "Chronicle of Higher Education" (4/25/2008 12:00:00 AM)

DeGroot deconstructs virtually all key icons of the era--Woodstock ('a festival, yes; a nation, no'), the Beatles, Dylan, student radicals, Haight-Ashbury, the sexual revolution and even Muhammad Ali--finding that their legends loom far larger than their realities. One might disagree, but DeGroot's book comprises a fascinating revisionist polemic.-- "Publishers Weekly" (1/21/2008 12:00:00 AM)

DeGroot makes an important contribution to the literature through his inclusion of events outside the U.S. in the 1960s.--K. B. Butter "Choice" (2/1/2009 12:00:00 AM)

DeGroot seeks to debunk the popular legend of the Sixties as a golden age of peace, love and understanding...He has written a book containing a little something to offend--and enlighten--just about everyone...DeGroot's The Sixties Unplugged stands as an informative, well-researched, mostly on-the-mark response to the claims of graying Baby Boomers about the wall-to-wall wonderfulness of that long, strange trip of a decade.--James E. Person Jr. "Washington Times" (3/23/2008 12:00:00 AM)

For many years, the two standard histories of the 1960s in the United States have been Todd Gitlin's The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage and Milton Viorst's Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s. A writer would need lots of confidence and energy to dethrone these works, and DeGroot has what it takes...This work is an important contribution to the literature of contemporary history.--Thomas A. Karel "Library Journal (starred review)" (4/1/2008 12:00:00 AM)

The cover art is swirly and psychedelic, but inside the author makes some trenchant points. [DeGroot] argues that in the 1960s, cynicism trumped hope and materialism quashed creativity, despite what people remember.-- "Vancouver Sun" (4/26/2008 12:00:00 AM)

A truly international history that crosses geographical boundaries in all directions. No other book covers such a diverse array of events with such facility and verve. Vivid and compelling, The Sixties Unplugged captures the frenetic energy and disorientation of the decade.--Jeremi Suri, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Without sentiment or tears, The Sixties Unplugged takes a fresh look at that insane and wonderful sore-thumb decade of the 20th Century. A thoroughly researched work of history, it is also a good story, beautifully told.--William McKeen, author of Outlaw Journalist

From the Publisher

DeGroot makes an important contribution to the literature through his inclusion of events outside the U.S. in the 1960s.
— K. B. Butter

Choice

DeGroot debunks this decade with bravura, relishing the ironies...[He] whirls through the era with a kind of manic energy...There is much to admire about this book, which is scrupulously researched and provocative. I thought I knew this period well, having lived through it intensely, but I was often surprised by the details that DeGroot churns up. He adds a great deal of nuance to memories...There was something fresh and strange about this brief era, and I refuse to let go of that. But I acknowledge that one must always keep its advances in perspective, and DeGroot's book—despite its dizzying aspect—goes a long way toward providing it.
— Jay Parini

Chronicle of Higher Education

The Sixties Unplugged is a bracing blast for those who want their history unadulterated and straight up. Gerard J. DeGroot's freewheeling book offers 67 snapshots of this discordant decade, from raunchy Berkeley to barbwired Berlin...DeGroot's picaresque journey visits all the sacred shrines familiar to those who lived through the decade or heard about it at granddad's knee: People's Park in Berkeley, the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, the bomb cellars of Greenwich Village, the battlefield in South Vietnam and the bra-bonfire outside the Miss America pageant. But the author also includes less familiar stops on the Magical Mystery Tour, reminding readers that the Sixties with a capital S did not belong to America alone. DeGroot's disparate vignettes are grouped into 15 chapters that show that the unrest reached far beyond our coasts, washing onto the shores of Mexico, Britain, Indonesia, Israel, France, China and indeed everywhere that people carried placards or transistor radios.
— Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman

San Diego Union-Tribune

In his meaty, rich text, DeGroot argues that the real spirit of the '60s has been lost in a deluge of nostalgia. The "free" decade, the freak show, was one in which China's Cultural Revolution proved to be one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. The sixties, he argues, were shaped more by the election of Reagan as the governor of California than by Kennedy. We've "chosen" to forget about Sharpeville, the Gaza Strip and Jakarta. The so-called "revolution" of the sixties, as we know it, didn't really exist. History, he argues, is not necessarily an accurate representation of what happened—but the way we view that it happened. His book, disguised as a coffee table "light read," is sure to spark controversy. It is, in effect a history book. Only in it, DeGroot says what few history books have the guts to.
— Caitlin O'Toole

Parade

DeGroot seeks to debunk the popular legend of the Sixties as a golden age of peace, love and understanding...He has written a book containing a little something to offend—and enlighten—just about everyone...DeGroot's The Sixties Unplugged stands as an informative, well-researched, mostly on-the-mark response to the claims of graying Baby Boomers about the wall-to-wall wonderfulness of that long, strange trip of a decade.
— James E. Person Jr.

Washington Times

Historians hate the idea that you can carve the past into neat little slices, era by era, like fine Velveeta, but publishers seem to love it. Gerard J. DeGroot, professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, tries to please both sides by offering what he calls "an impressionistic wandering through the landscape of a disorderly decade." Instead of an over-arching narrative, he serves up 67 short treatments of diverse moments and subjects—"shiny pieces of glass capable of being arranged into myriad realities." It's a clever concept, one that shows to advantage DeGroot's sweeping range of knowledge. He's done a gargantuan amount of research, is comfortable with the era's characters and the movements and is a reasonably entertaining narrator, with an eye for the arresting and the unusual.
—The Washington Post

Glenn Frankel

A squarish yet thorough survey of the time of torment. Born in 1955, DeGroot (Modern History/Univ. of St. Andrews; Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest, 2006, etc.) was, he admits, an observer but not a participant in the tumultuous decade, and he approvingly quotes Louis Menand's contention that the problem with '60s history is "that it is written by those who care too much about the decade." DeGroot isn't exactly indifferent, but his interest seems to lie in looking at the time through the horn rims of the Silent Majority rather than the granny glasses of Greenwich Village. Indeed, at the outset he trumpets the fact that Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Berets" outsold John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance," though the terms are unclear: The former was released in 1966, the latter in mid-1969, so it stands to reason that the Sadler would have outsold the Lennon in the '60s. And Sadler is forgotten today, while Lennon lives on. Whatever the case, the datum points to DeGroot's concern to tell the story of the time as one in which "Sugar, Sugar" gets equal billing with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," in which blue-collar patriots outnumbered but did not outshout the Abbie Hoffmans of the world. The author visits familiar ground throughout; here his narrative touches on the Cuban missile crisis, there on the Civil Rights movement, here on Tet, there on Chappaquiddick. To his credit, DeGroot travels outside the United States too, calling on the London Mods and the protesters at Tlatelolco before the Mexico City massacre of 1968. The author attributes to the comic Robin Williams the tagline, "If you remember the '60s, you weren't there," which othersources attribute to Timothy Leary and even Grace Slick. But no matter. His dismissal of nostalgia for the era as misplaced could well be countered by observing that, given what has followed, it seems like not such a bad time after all, even if it makes Pat Buchanan foam at the mouth. A useful primer for those who, indeed, weren't there-but best read alongside eyewitness accounts such as Todd Gitlin's Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage and Ronald Fraser's 1968: A Student Generation in Revolt.

Kirkus Reviews