Given its broad and vibrant subject, it would be quite difficult for
a writer of any proficiency to pen a boring book on 1968, and Mark
Kurlansky has indeed pulled together an entertaining and enlightening
popular history with 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. With the
Vietnam War and Soviet repression providing sparkplugs in the East
and West, student movements heated up in Berkeley, Prague, Mexico
City, Paris, and dozens of other hotspots. With youth in ascendancy,
music, film, and athletics became generational battlegrounds between
opposition forces that couldn't be more appalled with one another.
Not so fortuitously, the Summer Olympics in Mexico City and a
presidential election in the United States conspired to elevate the
tension higher as months passed. Kurlansky is skilled at concisely
capturing the personalities behind the conflicts, whether they be
heartbroken Czech leader Alexander Dubcek as Eastern Bloc troops
violently suppress his nation's uprising or respected veteran newsman
Walter Cronkite reluctantly editorializing against the war in
Vietnam. The author is more than willing to choose heroes (the doomed
Robert Kennedy) and villains (victorious presidential candidate
Richard Nixon), and clearly sides with the rebels in most cases. In
general, Kurlansky is more adept at covering the political front than
he is the equally revolutionary arts world, and it's apparent that
any chapter in this book could be expanded into a book of its own.
One's expectation is that captivated readers will view 1968 as a
portal into a deeper exploration of a fascinating time. --Steven
Stolder
We query many merchants so that you can instantly
compare prices and
availability. You can even check historic prices and subscribe
for notifications. For a manual check, clicking on a link will open a
new window with a search for this book on the merchant's site of your
choice.
