Synopses & Reviews
At the beginning of 1965, the U.S. seemed on the cusp of a golden age. Although Americans had been shocked by the assassination in 1963 of President Kennedy, they exuded a sense of consensus and optimism that showed no signs of abating. Indeed, political liberalism and interracial civil rights activism made it appear as if 1965 would find America more progressive and unified than it had ever been before. In January 1965, President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed that the country had no irreconcilable conflicts.”
Johnson, who was an extraordinarily skillful manager of Congress, succeeded in securing an avalanche of Great Society legislation in 1965, including Medicare, immigration reform, and a powerful Voting Rights Act. But as esteemed historian James T. Patterson reveals in The Eve of Destruction, that sense of harmony dissipated over the course of the year. As Patterson shows, 1965 marked the birth of the tumultuous era we now know as The Sixties,” when American society and culture underwent a major transformation. Turmoil erupted in the American South early in the year, when police attacked civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama. Many black leaders, outraged, began to lose faith in nonviolent and interracial strategies of protest. Meanwhile, the U.S. rushed into a deadly war in Vietnam, inciting rebelliousness at home. On August 11th, five days after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, racial violence exploded in the Watts area of Los Angeles. The six days of looting and arson that followed shocked many Americans and cooled their enthusiasm for the presidents remaining initiatives. As the national mood darkened, the country became deeply divided. By the end of 1965, a conservative resurgence was beginning to redefine the political scene even as developments in popular music were enlivening the Left.
In The Eve of Destruction, Patterson traces the events of this transformative year, showing how they dramatically reshaped the nation and reset the course of American life.
About the Author
James T. Patterson is Ford Foundation Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. Author of
Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore,
Brown v. Board of Education, and the Bancroft Prizewinning
Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974.
Table of Contents
Preface: 1965: Hinge for the Sixties1. High Expectations: American in Late 1964
2. Gathering Storms: Politics in Vietnam in late 1964
3. LBJ: Big Man in a Big Hurry
4. Out-Roosevelting Roosevelt: Johnson and the Great Society
5. Bloody Sunday: Struggles for Justice in Selma
6. Fork in the Road: Escalation in Vietnam
7. Maximum Feasible Participation”: Complications on the Domestic Front
8. A Credibility Gap
9. The Times They Are A-Changin”: Technology, Music, and Fights for Rights in Mid-1965
10. Bombshell from Saigon
11. Violence in the Streets: Watts and the Undermining of Liberalism
12. Eve of Destruction: The Rise of Unease
13. From Crisis to Crisis: The Great Society and the Challenge of Government
14. America at the End of 1965
Epilogue: 1966 and the Later Sixties
Acknowledgments
Notes
A Note on Sources
Index