To some, 1968 was the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap; avant-garde theater; the upsurge of the women's movement; and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.
In this monumental book, Mark Kurlansky brings to teeming life the cultural and political history of that pivotal year, when television's influence on global events first became apparent, and spontaneous uprisings occurred simultaneously around the world. Encompassing the diverse realms of youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media, 1968 shows how twelve volatile months transformed who we were as a people--and led us to where we are today.
"Highly readable . . . a rich perspective . . . Kurlansky is a writer of remarkable talents and interests."
-San Francisco Chronicle
Carefully researched and remarkably readable . . . Kurlansky has done a yeoman's job of amassing an incredible amount of information and making it accessible for today's reader. . . . What a year it was."
-The Denver Post
Splendid . . . evocative . . . No one before Kurlansky has managed to evoke so rich a set of experiences in so many different places-and to keep the story humming."
-Chicago Tribune
Kurlansky writes with a historian's diligence. . . . [He] traces skillfully the astounding streams of revolt converging in that historic year. . . . A colorful, highly evocative report on the awfulness and the idealism of the time."
-The Seattle Times
"A cornucopia of astounding events and audacious originality . . . Like a reissue of a classic album or a PBS documentary, this book is about a subject it's hard to imagine people ever tiring of revisiting. They just don't make years like 1968 very often."
-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"1968 breathes a new life into these moments. . . . Kurlansky has a flair for bringing wit and breezy intelligence to his subjects."
-Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Fascinating . . . [Kurlansky] re-creates events with flair and drama."
-Seattle Post-Intelligencer