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Overview
In America in the Sixties, Greene goes beyond the clichTs and synthesizes thirty years of research, writing, and teaching on one of the most turbulent decades of the twentieth century. Greene sketches the well-known players of the periodûJohn F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Betty Friedanûbringing each to life with subtle detail. He introduces the reader to lesser-known incidents of the decade and offers fresh and persuasive insights on many of its watershed events. Combining an engrossing narrative with intelligent analysis, America in the Sixties enriches our understanding of that pivotal era.
Synopsis
In America in the Sixties, Greene goes beyond the clichTs and synthesizes thirty years of research, writing, and teaching on one of the most turbulent decades of the twentieth century. Greene sketches the well-known players of the periodûJohn F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Betty Friedanûbringing each to life with subtle detail. He introduces the reader to lesser-known incidents of the decade and offers fresh and persuasive insights on many of its watershed events. Combining an engrossing narrative with intelligent analysis, America in the Sixties enriches our understanding of that pivotal era.
Publishers Weekly
With a vexingly complicated start steeped in presidential history that lauds Eisenhower and dispels the "Kennedy Myth," Greene steamrollers into a fastidiously detailed but brisk names-and-places timeline of the Civil Rights movement, with the occasional fly-on-the-wall observation helping to break the monotony. Some of his historical discussions read like thinly-veiled commentary on current problem-solving, however, and he takes too long to break free of standard textbook content. Knowing his target audience, Greene finally takes a hard left to deliver on the his promise (a "readable, concise, and scholarly" approach "that attempts to meet the needs of both student and instructor alike"), providing a page-turning narrative of student unrest, feminism, constitutional rights, and the Vietnam War, interwoven with analyses of class stratification, emerging social ideology, and the shifting media culture. Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" nearly whispers into the readers' ears. But after exposing Nixon's dirty underbelly and paying a clichéd homage to pop culture, Greene abruptly wraps things up. And several topics that are now critical (the environment, education, immigration) are here only modestly grazed.
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Editorials
Publishers Weekly
With a vexingly complicated start steeped in presidential history that lauds Eisenhower and dispels the "Kennedy Myth," Greene steamrollers into a fastidiously detailed but brisk names-and-places timeline of the Civil Rights movement, with the occasional fly-on-the-wall observation helping to break the monotony. Some of his historical discussions read like thinly-veiled commentary on current problem-solving, however, and he takes too long to break free of standard textbook content. Knowing his target audience, Greene finally takes a hard left to deliver on the his promise (a "readable, concise, and scholarly" approach "that attempts to meet the needs of both student and instructor alike"), providing a page-turning narrative of student unrest, feminism, constitutional rights, and the Vietnam War, interwoven with analyses of class stratification, emerging social ideology, and the shifting media culture. Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" nearly whispers into the readers' ears. But after exposing Nixon's dirty underbelly and paying a clichéd homage to pop culture, Greene abruptly wraps things up. And several topics that are now critical (the environment, education, immigration) are here only modestly grazed.(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.