1968

The Rise and Fall of the New American Revolution

By (author) Robert C. Cottrell, Blaine T. Browne

Publication date:

18 May 2018

Length of book:

312 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781538107751

The year 1968 retains its mythic hold on the imagination in America and around the world. Like the revolutionary years 1789, 1848, 1871, 1917, and 1989, it is recalled most of all as a year when revolution beckoned or threatened. On the 50^th anniversary of that tumultuous year, cultural historians Robert Cottrell and Blaine T. Browne provide a well-informed, up-to-date synthesis of the events that rocked the world, emphasizing the revolutionary possibilities more fully than previous books. For a time, it seemed as if anything were possible, that utopian visions could be borne out in the political, cultural, racial, or gender spheres. It was the year of the Tet Offensive, the Resistance, the Ultra-Resistance, the New Politics, Chavez and RFK breaking bread, LBJ’s withdrawal, student revolt, barricades in Paris, the Prague Spring, SDS’ sharp turn leftward, communes, the American Indian Movement, the Beatles’ “Revolution,” the Stones’ “Street Fighting Man,” The Population Bomb, protest at the Miss America pageant, and Black Power at the Mexico City Olympics. 1968 was also the year of My Lai, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Warsaw Pact tanks in Czechoslovakia, the police riot in Chicago, the Tlatelolco massacre, Reagan’s belated bid, Wallace’s American Independent Party campaign, “Love It or Leave It,” and the backlash that set the stage, at year’s end, for Richard Milhous Nixon’s ascendancy to the White House. For those readers reliving 1968 or exploring it for the first time, Cottrell and Browne serve as insightful guides, weaving the events together into a powerful narrative of an America and a world on the brink.

Acknowledgments
Preface

Chapter 1: “Yippie!”
Chapter 2: “Hell No! They Shouldn’t Go!”
Chapter 3: “We Had to Destroy the Town in Order to Save It”
Chapter 4: “The Impossible Dream”: The New Politics
Chapter 5: “We Shall Overcome”: The Dreamer
Chapter 6: “We All Want to Change the World”: Springtime of the Young Rebels
Chapter 7: “Burn, Baby, Burn”: Bearing Witness and the Boston Five
Chapter 8: “You Saw You Want a Revolution”
Chapter 9: “There’s a Man with a Gun Over There”: The Politics of Assassination
Chapter 10: “The Whole World is Watching: Czechago
Chapter 11: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”: People Power
Chapter 12: “The Personal Is Political”
Chapter 13: “Goin’ Up the Country”: The New Environmentalism
Chapter 14: “Your Day, Of Course, Is Going to Be Over Soon”: The Backlash
Chapter 15: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”: Legacies and Conclusion

Appendix A: List of Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index
About the Authors

Robert C. Cottrell and Blaine T. Browne’s book is a reminder that the year 1968 saw the United States on the brink of a revolution, one that was virtually apocalyptic in scope. Race riots led to torched American cities, and outrage and rebellion against the Vietnam War prompted student revolts on campuses across the land. Conspiracy trials were held in an attempt to halt the radical challenge to authority. Major political figures and other leaders were gunned down, with the images broadcast to a horrified population.

It was a time of extremes. Cottrell and Browne show how the events that shattered the belief in “US invincibility” unfolded against the backdrop of a great generational divide and global unrest, contrasted with the pull to nonviolence and peace, free love, and the rise of communal and back-to-the-land living, all topped off with a good dose of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.