Synopses & Reviews
Few events during that whirlwind of movements, conflicts and upheaval known as "the sixties" took Americans more by surprise, or were more likely to inspire their rage, than the rebellion of those who were young, white, and college educated. Perhaps none have been more maligned or misunderstood since. In
A Fiction of the Past, Dominick Cavallo pushes past the contemporary fog of myth, cold disdain and warm nostalgia that shrouds the radical youth culture of the '60s. He explores how the furiously chaotic sixties sprang from the comparatively placid forties and fifties. The book digs beyond the post-World War II decades and seeks the historical sources of the youth culture in the distant American past. Cavallo shows how the sixties' most radical ideas and values were deeply etched in the American soul.
Review
It is all too rare that any book on the '60s these days makes me really rethink the era, but Cavallo's succeeds brilliantly...
Maurice Isserman, William R. Kenan Professor of History, Hamilton College
Synopsis
A groundbreaking study of the sixties that situates the turbulent era in the tradition of American radical history.
About the Author
Dominick J. Cavallo is professor of history at Adelphi University. He lives in Garden City, New York.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Problems in Making Sense of the Sixties *
Part I: The Sources of Ferment in the Forties and Fifties * Raising Rebels and the Cult of Security: The Ambiguous Forties and Fifties * New Bottles, Old Wine: An Archaeology of Rebellion *
Part II: The Sixties in American History * "Free Because It's Yours": The Diggers and the San Francisco Scene, 1964-1968 * Rock and Work: Another Side of Sixties Music * The Politics of Autonomy and Community: Students for a Democratic Society, 1960-1965 * SDS' Failed Quest for Community * Epilogue: The Sixties as a Fiction of the American Past