The '60s & the End of Modern America

by David Steigerwald

Book Overview

This is an historical narrative that describes and analyzes the changes and excitement of the 60s. The author sees the period as one that proved Americans can do better than they have done in the me-decade of the 80s. He proposes that it was a time that rejected complacency in order to recover a zeal for the pursuit of excellence, for the nation to re-awaken to a sense of national mission and ideals; and a time when artists, intellectuals and the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312090072
• ISBN13: 9780312090074
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Digging Beneath the Headlines

As a general reader, I found Steigerwald's book highly informative, particularly those aspects that tend to get passed over in favor of the more dramatic headline-grabbers of the decade. A number of books deal with the more popular aspects--the flower children, the anti-war protests, Johnson's hapless maneuvering, etc. Here the author deals not only with the compelling political aspects, but with those cultural and sociological changes that frame the more general upheaval. Thus included are lengthy discussions of trends in urban housing and ethnic neighborhoods that underlie much of the period's political unrest, along with the kinetic appeal of the Civil Rights movement. There's also an unusual and illuminating chapter on the post-war retreat of rationalism in the arts, a lesser-known but contributing factor. This all adds up to a penetrating and non-partisan general history of the sixties that lays bare many of the root causes behind the decade's emblematic events. Also included is a very helpful annotated bibliography that should aid research up to the publishing date, viz. 1995. The prose style is admirably readable and concise, and though 15 years have passed since publication, the text remains as current now as it was then. One caveat-- this is not a "flavor of the era" work. Readers looking for coverage of the "hippie" movement or Age of Aquarius happenings should probably look elsewhere. The author makes clear that these aspects, though immensely colorful, were not themselves causative, but rather the result of deeper forces beyond themselves. Thus, his concern throughout is with causes more than effects, and the reader can judge accordingly. Anyway, the book remains of genuine value to readers looking to get behind the attention-grabbers of that watershed decade.