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Title: 1968 : The Year That Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky ISBN: 0-345-45581-9 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.18 (17 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Either You Love the 60's or You Do Not
Comment: There is a certain (off putting) self centeredness about the book that makes it all sound more important than it really was. If you can tolerate that and you have the time for another book then this book is okay.
Yes we can remember exactly what we were doing at the exact moments that Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were shot, as we did the other years when JFK was shot, or when Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words, or when Lady Di had the terrible traffic accident, or on 9-11.
Yes the year 1968 was a year of turmoil and strife and re-evaluation of morals and values. It was a time when the baby boomers came of age and had to face the draft and rioting in the streets and flower power and drugs and everything else. For that generation and at that time the people thought it was all very important.
But there are many important years and other milestones, and other generations, and I think in a larger picture and in retrospect this year was not that important.
Having said that this is a very well written book with lots of interesting information even if there is a bit too much navel gazing about the age of Aquarius.
Three or four stars.
Jack in Toronto
Rating: 1
Summary: Old News
Comment: Part hagiography, part self congratulation, Kurlansky tells us the tale of a generation that changed the world so much that the world is now fundamentally the same as it was before, only more so (that is, the world is increasingly state capitalist). The GI generation bored the young of their era with war stories. The generation of '68 demonstrates that anti-war stories can be even more boring. Kurlansky tendentiously offers us more of the same, only more tediously.
At 464 pages, the book is too long - but not nearly as long as the longwindedness of the generation of 1968.
I reccomend the book - as a wonderful example of self parody.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful Book about a Turbulent Year
Comment: Though I wouldn't be born for years after the tragic night they killed Bobby Kennedy, I remember it well. My father was there. Nineteen Sixty-Eight was a watershed year for him as it was for Amercia and the world. Not only did Bobby lose his life that year, but Martin did too. It was also the year of the siege of Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, that war America wanted to forget even while it was still going on. It was a year of riots in both the aftermath of Mr. King's assassination and in Chicago at the Democratic Convention. Mr. Dubcek rose and fell in Czechoslovakia, Mr. Nixon became president, we saw TV from space and U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised black-gloved fists in protest during the medals ceremony at the Olympic games in Mexico City.
All of this and more I'd been raised with, had learned at my father's knee when I was a child, reminded of again at his side when I was a girl and later when I was a young woman. These events shaped him, made him into a wonderful liberal, always willing to give the shirt off his back to help a stranger in need. But my dad's gone now and I haven't thought about 1968 in years, not until I saw this wonderful book in my local bookstore.
Mr. Kurlansky has delivered a book that brought back my dad, a book for all of us who were born so long after the fact and a book, I believe, that is must reading even for all of those who lived during that turbulent year that rocked the world. It's a year worth remembering, worth learning about, worth knowing.
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Title: They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967 by David Maraniss ISBN: 0743217802 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush by Kevin Phillips ISBN: 0670032646 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Down and Dirty Pictures : Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind ISBN: 068486259X Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Absolute Friends by John le Carre ISBN: 0316000647 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 12 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black ISBN: 1586481843 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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