The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade
“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.

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The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade
“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.

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The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade

The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade

by Gerard J. DeGroot
The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade

The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade

by Gerard J. DeGroot

Paperback

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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)

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