Kubakrise und Vietnamkrieg, Bürgerrechtsbewegung und "Great Society", Woodstock und Mondlandung - die "Sixties" zählen in der Geschichte der USA zu den ereignisreichsten Jahrzehnten überhaupt. Wie aber kam es zu den politischen, sozialen und kulturellen Umwälzungen dieser Dekade und welche Konflikte sind noch heute virulent? Drücken sie dem "American Way of Life" des 21. Jahrhunderts immer noch ihren Stempel auf? Die Autorinnen und Autoren spüren diesen Fragen nach - genau 50 Jahre, nachdem John F. Kennedy 1963 den Schüssen von Dallas zum Opfer fiel.

The Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Summer of Love--the 1960s were one of the most turbulent decades in US history. These years launched an unprecedented public debate over the meaning of "America," dividing US society in deep and troubling ways. Yet despite the passage of time, the contemporary crises in the "American way of life" and the political system that sustain it might well make one wonder: to what degree are we still living on the outskirts of the '60s? By examining crucial events, trends, and individuals from the civic, social, political, intellectual, cultural, and economic spheres across a range of disciplines, this volume offers a nuanced and pluralist account of the longest decade in America.

David Maraniss tells the epic story of Vietnam and the sixties through the events of a few gripping, passionate days of war and peace in October 1967. With meticulous and captivating detail, They Marched Into Sunlight brings that catastrophic time back to life while examining questions about the meaning of dissent and the official manipulation of truth—issues that are as relevant today as they were decades ago. In a seamless narrative, Maraniss weaves together the stories of three very different worlds: the death and heroism of soldiers in Vietnam, the anger and anxiety of antiwar students back home, and the confusion and obfuscating behavior of officials in Washington. To understand what happens to the people in these interconnected stories is to understand America's anguish. Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the book describes the battles that evoked cultural and political conflicts that still reverberate.

Winner, 2024 Blue Metropolis First Peoples Prize, for the whole of her work Finalist, 2018 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding Finalist, 2018 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Tanya Talaga, the bestselling author of Seven Fallen Feathers, calls attention to an urgent global humanitarian crisis among Indigenous Peoples — youth suicide. “Talaga’s research is meticulous and her journalistic style is crisp and uncompromising. She brings each story to life, skillfully weaving the stories of the youths’ lives, deaths, and families together with sharp analysis... The book is heartbreaking and infuriating, both an important testament to the need for change and a call to action.” — Publishers Weekly *Starred Review* “Talaga has crafted an urgent and unshakable portrait of the horrors faced by Indigenous teens going to school in Thunder Bay, Ontario... Talaga’s incisive research and breathtaking storytelling could bring this community one step closer to the healing it deserves.” — Booklist *Starred Review* In this urgent and incisive work, bestselling and award-winning author Tanya Talaga explores the alarming rise of youth suicide in Indigenous communities in Canada and beyond. From Northern Ontario to Nunavut, Norway, Brazil, Australia, and the United States, the Indigenous experience in colonized nations is startlingly similar and deeply disturbing. It is an experience marked by the violent separation of Peoples from the land, the separation of families, and the separation of individuals from traditional ways of life — all of which has culminated in a spiritual separation that has had an enduring impact on generations of Indigenous children. As a result of this colonial legacy, too many communities today lack access to the basic determinants of health — income, employment, education, a safe environment, health services — leading to a mental health and youth suicide crisis on a global scale. But, Talaga reminds us, First Peoples also share a history of resistance, resilience, and civil rights activism. Based on her Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy series, All Our Relations is a powerful call for action, justice, and a better, more equitable world for all Indigenous Peoples.

The 1960s on Film tells the narrative of the 1960s through the lens of the movie camera, analyzing 10 films that focus on the people, events, and issues of the decade. Films create both an impression of and — at times for younger audiences — a primary definition of events, people, and issues of an era. The 1960s on Film examines the 1960s as the decade was presented in ten films that focused on that decade. Discussion will focus on both what the films have to say about the era and how close they come to accurately depicting it. For example, films such as Mississippi Burning and Selma tell the story of racial conflict and hope for reconciliation in the 1960s. Other films such as The Right Stuff and Hidden Figures show the deep fascination America had at that time with the burgeoning space program and NASA, while Easy Rider analyzes the role of rock music and drugs among young people of the decade. The Deer Hunter studies the controversies surrounding the war in Vietnam. The Graduate, Mad Men, JFK, and Thirteen Days also receive significant treatment in this exciting volume.

Histories of the US sixties invariably focus on New York City, but Los Angeles was an epicenter of that decade's political and social earthquake. L.A. was a launchpad for Black Power-where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation-and home to the Chicano walkouts and Moratorium, as well as birthplace of 'Asian America' as a political identity, base of the antiwar movement, and of course, centre of California counterculture. Mike Davis and Jon Wiener provide the first comprehensive movement history of L.A. in the sixties, drawing on extensive archival research, scores of interviews with principal figures of the 1960s movements, and personal histories (both Davis and Wiener are native Los Angelenos). Following on from Davis's award-winning L.A. history, City of Quartz, Set the Night on Fire is a fascinating historical corrective, delivered in scintillating and fiercely elegant prose.

If the World Wars defined the first half of the twentieth century, the sixties defined the second half, acting as the pivot on which modern times have turned. From popular music to individual liberties, the tastes and convictions of the Western world are indelibly stamped with the impact of this tumultuous decade. Framing the sixties as a period stretching from 1958 to 1974, Arthur Marwick argues that this long decade ushered in nothing less than a cultural revolution – one that raged most clearly in the United States, Britain, France, and Italy. Marwick recaptures the events and movements that shaped life as we know it: the rise of a youth subculture across the West; the sit-ins and marches of the civil rights movement; Britain's surprising rise to leadership in fashion and music; the emerging storm over Vietnam; the Paris student uprising of 1968; the growing force of feminism, and much more. For some, it was a golden age of liberation and political progress; for others, an era in which depravity was celebrated, and the secure moral and social framework subverted. The sixties was no short-term era of ecstasy and excess. On the contrary, the decade set the cultural and social agenda for the rest of the century, and left deep divisions still felt today.

“For almost two decades, investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell doggedly pursued the Klansmen responsible for some of the most notorious murders of the civil rights movement. This book is his amazing story. Thanks to him, and to courageous prosecutors, witnesses, and FBI agents, justice finally prevailed.” —John Grisham, author of The Guardians On June 21, 1964, more than twenty Klansmen murdered three civil rights workers. The killings, in what would become known as the “Mississippi Burning” case, were among the most brazen acts of violence during the civil rights movement. And even though the killers’ identities, including the sheriff’s deputy, were an open secret, no one was charged with murder in the months and years that followed. It took forty-one years before the mastermind was brought to trial and finally convicted for the three innocent lives he took. If there is one man who helped pave the way for justice, it is investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell. In Race Against Time, Mitchell takes readers on the twisting, pulse-racing road that led to the reopening of four of the most infamous killings from the days of the civil rights movement, decades after the fact. His work played a central role in bringing killers to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham and the Mississippi Burning case. Mitchell reveals how he unearthed secret documents, found long-lost suspects and witnesses, building up evidence strong enough to take on the Klan. He takes us into every harrowing scene along the way, as when Mitchell goes into the lion’s den, meeting one-on-one with the very murderers he is seeking to catch. His efforts have put four leading Klansmen behind bars, years after they thought they had gotten away with murder. Race Against Time is an astonishing, courageous story capturing a historic race for justice, as the past is uncovered, clue by clue, and long-ignored evils are brought into the light. This is a landmark book and essential reading for all Americans.

Uncle Sam Wanted Me is the story of Daniel Kornstein’s being drafted out of the comparative comforts and intellectual stimulation of law school into the rigors and worries of Army life during the Vietnam War. In clear, entertaining, and memorable language, Kornstein looks back more than half a century to explain and try to understand how he and his generation felt about and dealt with the moral issues posed by the Vietnam draft. The author describes what it was like to receive his draft notice as he studied for his first-year final exams, what his reactions were, and what choices he made and why. Like Proust, the seventy-four-year-old author moves back through time into his memory, dipping into and out of his consciousness, with his old Army dog tags as his madeleine. Kornstein turns the story of his being drafted into the Vietnam Era Army into an expansive meditation on coming of age in the shadow of an unpopular war and making important life decisions about reacting to that war. It is his eloquent attempt to use his personal experiences and moods to explore larger issues, to connect social, cultural and historical dots about the relationship between the military and civilian spheres of life in America, to think about what it even means to be an American citizen. The climax of Kornstein’s time in uniform was being assigned as a legal clerk for the prosecutors of a court-martial arising from the horrible 1968 My Lai Massacre in which U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed, non-combatant old men, women and children. He discusses and analyzes that case. In a final chapter, the author provides a personal long-delayed after-action report summarizing significant lessons from his two-year military experience as a draftee. He considers the pros and cons of an all-volunteer military, whether a draft is necessary and if so how to make it fair and equitable, the possibility of other forms of national service, our continuing entanglement in undeclared wars, more recent examples of war atrocities, and the residual effects of military service on individuals. Uncle Sam Wanted Me offers insights, ripened reflections, for the author’s generation as well as for a new generation that overwhelmingly isn’t personally exposed to anything military, much less the draft.