Synopses & Reviews
In contrast with most histories of this period,
America's Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon does not treat the 1960s as a single historical moment or as successive waves of activism. Rather, it employs a chronological narrative to identify three distinct phases during which events of the era unfolded. The first began with the cultural ferment of the 1950s and ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. During the second phase, from 1964-1968, the "uncivil" wars began in earnest: Americans disagreed about new social and cultural mores, protests against the Vietnam War increased in size and vehemence, and American cities erupted in racial violence. From 1967 through 1968, all of these forces combined to divide Americans more deeply than they had been since the Civil War. In the third phase, Richard Nixon promised to bring Americans together. However, a host of new value and identity movements--environmentalists, consumer advocates, feminists, gay, Latino, and Native American activists--frustrated his design. Only after the Watergate scandals forced this polarizing figure from office did a measure of civility return to the nation's public discourse.
America's Uncivil Wars captures the broad sweep of this tumultuous era, analyzing both the cultural and political influences on the movements of the 1960s. Paying particular attention to Latinos, Native Americans, feminism, and gay liberation, it integrates the politics of gender and race into the central political narrative. The book also covers such topics as McCarthyism; the FBI; rock and roll; teen culture in the 1950s; the origins of SDS, SNCC, and YAF; and the environmental and consumer movements. With its engaging narrative style and broad cultural emphasis, America's Uncivil Wars brings a fresh approach to our understanding of not only the 1960s but also U.S. history since 1945.
Review
"This is a very well-written and engaging book, which deftly synthesizes much of the scholarship on the 1960s. Its virtues are its breadth, its cogency, and its ability to make this turbulent time come alive in all sorts of ways." --Ed Linenthal, author of The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory
"This book is pure narrative history. It moves forward relentlessly, omnivorously, in torrents of precise and well-paced prose. It should be viewed, primarily, as a newsreel, a Bayeaux Tapestry, a mural in some palace of memory. The fundamental success of this book is Lytle's ability to zero in on the significant events, to place them in their proper context, and to tell his story as vividly as possible."--Kevin Starr, University of Southern California
Review
"This book is pure narrative history. It moves forward relentlessly, omnivorously, in torrents of precise and well-paced prose. It should be viewed, primarily, as a newsreel, a Bayeaux Tapestry, a mural in some palace of memory. The fundamental success of this book is Lytle's ability to zero in on the significant events, to place them in their proper context, and to tell his story as vividly as possible."--Kevin Starr, University of Southern California
"This is a very well-written and engaging book, which deftly synthesizes much of the scholarship on the 1960s. Its virtue as a book is its breadth, its cogency, and its ability to make this turbulent time come alive in all sorts of ways." --Ed Linenthal, author of The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory
"A telling analysis of the 1960s. 'America's Uncivil Wars' is written in an appealing, engaging narrative style; Lytle looks into every nook and cranny of the decade, and sees the end of 'uncivil wars' taking place during Richard Nixon's corrupt presidency."--Deseret Morning News
"Anyone who wants a closer look at one of the most tumultuous periods of this nation's history should not fail to read America's Uncivil Wars.... This book delivers all it promises."--The Daily Oklahoman
Synopsis
Here is a panoramic history of America from 1954 to 1973, ranging from the buoyant teen-age rebellion first captured by rock and roll, to the drawn-out and dispiriting endgame of Watergate.
In America's Uncivil Wars, Mark Hamilton Lytle illuminates the great social, cultural, and political upheavals of the era. He begins his chronicle surprisingly early, in the late '50s and early '60s, when A-bomb protests and books ranging from Catcher in the Rye to Silent Spring and The Feminine Mystique challenged attitudes towards sexuality and the military-industrial complex. As baby boomers went off to college, drug use increased, women won more social freedom, and the widespread availability of birth control pills eased inhibitions against premarital sex. Lytle describes how in 1967 these isolated trends began to merge into the mainstream of American life. The counterculture spread across the nation, Black Power dominated the struggle for racial equality, and political activists mobilized vast numbers of dissidents against the war. It all came to a head in 1968, with the deepening morass of the war, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., race riots, widespread campus unrest, the violence at the Democratic convention in Chicago, and the election of Richard Nixon. By then, not only did Americans divide over race, class, and gender, but also over matters as simple as the length of a boy's hair or of a girl's skirt. Only in the aftermath of Watergate did the uncivil wars finally crawl to an end, leaving in their wake a new elite that better reflected the nation's social and cultural diversity.
Blending a fast-paced narration with broad cultural analysis, America's Uncivil Wars offers an invigorating portrait of the most tumultuous and exciting time in modern American history.
About the Author
Mark Hamilton Lytle is a Professor of History and Director of the Historical Studies Program and is Codirector of the American Studies Program at Bard College. He is the coauthor of
After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection and
Nation of Nations: A Narrative History of the American Republic.
Table of Contents
PrefaceIntroduction
PART ONE: The Era of Consensus, 1954-63
1. The Consensus
2. The Cultural Cold War
3. Cracks in the Consensus
4. The New Generation
5. The Cold War on the New Frontier
6. The Second Civil War
PART TWO: The Sixties, 1964-68
7. 1964: Welcome to the 1960s
8. Teach-in, Strike Out: The Uncivil Wars Heat Up
9. The Great Freak Forward
10. A Very Bad Year Begins
11. A Bad Year Gets Worse: The Domestic War Front
PART THREE: The Rise of Essentialist Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon, 1969-74
12. The Rise of Gender and Identity Politics
13. Identities of Race and Ethnicity
14. Taking on the System
15. The Uncivil Wars: Woodstock to Kent State
16. Watergate: The Last Battle
Epilogue: Who Won?
Notes on Sources
Index