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.
The Washington Post's Book World
Many of us are still haunted by the events of 1968. Just two weeks ago in Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean recalled the '60s: "When I was 21 years old, it was the end of the civil rights era, and America had paid an enormous price. Martin Luther King had been killed. Bobby Kennedy was dead.... But it was also a time of great hope. Medicare had passed. Head Start had passed. The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. We felt like we were all in it together." Mark Kurlansky echoes Dean when he writes: "The thrilling thing about the year 1968 was that it was a time when significant segments of population all over the globe refused to be silent about the many things that were wrong with the world. . .. And this gave the world a sense of hope that it has rarely had, a sense that where there is wrong, there are always people who will expose it and try to change it."
Bookmarks Magazine
Kurlansky is the first to admit that his youthful, anti-Vietnam bent is anything but objective; after all, he came of age during the turbulent '60s. Yet, rather than romanticize his (and, it seems, many sympathetic critics') former causes, he offers an accessible, generally unbiased account of the year. He provides scant explanation of the origins of this near-global revolution; nor does he link the events of 1968 to the present day. Still, it's the best biography of a year we have. And those who lived through it will, as they read 1968, relive an intensely personal journey.
San Francisco Chronicle
Highly readable... a rich perspective... Kurlansky is a writer of remarkable talents and interests.
Chicago Tribune
Splendid... evocative... No one before Kurlansky has managed to evoke so rich a set of experiences in so many different places - and to keep the story humming.
The Seattle Times
Kurlansky writes with a historian's diligence.... [He] traces skillfully the astounding streams of revolt converging in that historic year....
A colorful, highly evocative report on the awfulness and the idealism of the time.
Booklist - Keir Graff
.... what can be gained from yet another Boomer report on the 1960s? Surprisingly, quite a bit. In examining the momentous events of 1968, he refolds the map so the U.S. is no longer the center of student protest.....This is very fine--and surprisingly timely-- although its scope and complexity may keep it from finding the broad popularity of the author's earlier works, where we delighted in the surprising histories of ordinary things.
Library Journal
Strongly recommended for most public and academic libraries.
Publishers Weekly
1968 is a thorough and loving (perhaps a bit too loving of the boomer generation) tapestry--or time capsule.
Kirkus Reviews
A masterful chronicle of a year when the world was living dangerously and everybody's hair was afire.....Says so much so well about a year that still steals your breath away, even with so many of its hopes dashed.
A magnificent meditation on a pivotal decade in our nation's history, is in every way different from the profane and sclerotic antihero of Sabbath's Theater.
With candor and ennobling power, McCain tells a story that, in the words of Newsweek, 'makes the other presidential candidates look like pygmies'.
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Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
First time novelist Vaddey Ratner captured my heart and senses in this novel based on her childhood in Cambodia. Her story transcends any news story...
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From the first page, I was drawn in by the lyrical writing of the author and mesmerized as the narrator, eight year old Raami, remembered the years...
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Trite but true, all good things must come to an end. I so wanted to keep reading the wonderful prose, the settings that let one think they are part...
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Kenn Nesbitt is new Children's Poet Laureate(Jun 12 2013) Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position...
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The Washington Post's Book World
