In this monumental new book, award-winning author Mark Kurlansky has written his most ambitious work to date: a singular and ultimately definitive look at a pivotal moment in history. With 1968, Mark Kurlansky brings to teeming life the cultural and political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval. People think of it as the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was … 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 birth of the women’s movement, and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. From New York, Miami, Berkeley, and Chicago to Paris, Prague, Rome, Berlin, Warsaw, Tokyo, and Mexico City, spontaneous uprisings occurred simultaneously around the globe.
Everything was disrupted. In the Middle East, Yasir Arafat’s guerilla organization rose to prominence . . . both the Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Biennale were forced to shut down by protesters . . . the Kentucky Derby winner was stripped of the crown for drug use . . . the Olympics were a disaster, with the Mexican government having massacred hundreds of students protesting police brutality there . . . and the Miss America pageant was stormed by feminists carrying banners that introduced to the television-watching public the phrase “women’s liberation.”
Kurlansky shows how the coming of live television made 1968 the first global year. It was the year that an amazed world watched the first live telecast from outer space, and that TV news expanded to half an hour. For the first time, Americans watched that day’s battle–the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive–on the evening news. Television also shocked the world with seventeen minutes of police clubbing demonstrators at the Chicago convention, live film of unarmed students facing Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia, and a war of starvation in Biafra. The impact was huge, not only on the antiwar movement, but also on the medium itself. The fact that one now needed television to make things happen was a cultural revelation with enormous consequences.
Thoroughly researched and engagingly written–full of telling anecdotes, penetrating analysis, and the author’s trademark incisive wit–1968 is the most important book yet of Kurlansky’s noteworthy career.
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Mark Kurlansky has done it again: he has turned point-on research into a compelling narrative of a time. Even though I lived through the time in question, I had not put together the events that culminated in a change for society, worldwide. This is why we have so many protests, so many violent acts in modern culture.
The year 1968 marks a special passage for me: I became passionate about the news of the day, even though I wasn’t quite eleven yet (September birthday). Kansas City was a tinder box in 1968. My father, a policeman, was issued riot gear b/c there were race riots downtown. It was one of the few times in my life I ever saw him scared. He was worried for mom and me, and they talked about moving us south (to their home county) until everything settled down. We’d seen the body count from VIetnam for a while, so that wasn’t new in 1968, but the war news was awful all year. According to the author, 1968 saw the largest body count of any year during the Vietnam War. And public opinion definitely turned against the war. And I was heartbroken when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
All this leads up to WHY I snapped up this book when I saw it. 1968 was a seminal year in my formation. It was a seminal year around the world apparently. There were many student protests around the world. The author does a really good job looking at the rise of the students, and student protests in the US, Germany, Mexico, Czechoslovakia, and other places. He also helped me understand the “Prague Spring” and subsequent Soviet invasion. Kurlansky goes into detail about the politics behind the Democratic and Republican Conventions, and the candidates, which I enjoyed.
What Kurlansky did NOT do was go into any great detail on how the US public responded to the two assassinations: Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy. I was expecting more info on both, especially Kennedy – probably b/c of my aforementioned heartbreak when Kennedy was murdered.
So while I appreciated learning far more about worldwide protest, I feel like the assassinations, the Conventions, and the Olympics took a back seat to all the student uprisings.
And my greatest caveat at all to anyone interested in this book: Kurlansky took a fascinating subject and made it deadly DULL. I really had to force myself to keep reading sometimes. At least he ended “1968” on a hopeful point – with the iconic picture of “Earth Rise” taken from the Apollo 8 mission to orbit the moon. It was a hopeful end to a depressing book delineating issues that we still deal with on a world-wide basis. 3.6 stars, reluctantly rounded up to 4.
This is a historical rendition of the year and tends to accuracy.
Very interesting and informative.
Tedious at times. Definitely a left leaning political outlook
There were parts that were both interesting and informative but too much of the book was filled with political details about things happening in Eastern Europe that were of little interest to an American audience.
Still repairing the damage done by 1968’s mischief
One of many good books thatvexplore and explain the 60s to those who were there and those who were not. Worth the read.
Interesting and entertaining world history of the year 1968.
As a 1968 high school graduate, I found this book fascinating. It truly was a year that rocked the world. I also recommend the NBC documentary, narrated by Serena Williams, about the 1968 summer olympics.
A pleasant read for a nonfiction history book.
This reads like a good text book.
Boring
Wordy mish mash
Vietnam was the beginning of the end of the American culture in the 20th century. Sad.
Well written with very interesting facts and history of an action packed year.
I was part part of graduating Class of
1968..Valley High School..New Kensington ..Westmoreland County PA.. One month later..I was starting US Army Basic Training . Six months after HS graduation, I was stationed along the South Korean DMZ. This book stirred up a lot of memories.