The Long Sixties

America, 1954-1974

Strain, Christopher B.

1. Edition May 2016
224 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd

ISBN: 978-0-470-67362-1

John Wiley & Sons

Wiley Online Library Sample Chapter

Further versions

The Long Sixties is a concise and engaging treatment of the major political, social, and cultural developments of this tumultuous period.
* A comprehensive yet concise overview that offers coverage of a variety of topics, from the beginnings of the Cold War shortly after World War II, through the civil rights, women's, and Chicano civil rights movements, to Watergate, an event that transpired in 1974 but capped the "Long Sixties."
* A detached and unprejudiced look at this turbulent decade, that is both lively and revelatory
* Timelines are included to help students understand how particular episodes transpired in quick succession, and how topics intertwined and overlapped
* Nicely complemented by Brian Ward's The 1960s: A Documentary Reader (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), The Long Sixties book matches the documentary reader chapter-by-chapter in theme and periodization

Preface: The Long Sixties vi

Acknowledgments xi

1 The Fifties: Tranquility in Turmoil 1

2 From New Frontier to Great Society 18

3 The Cold War 30

4 The Civil Rights Movement 45

5 The Student Rebellion 63

6 The Vietnam Quagmire 77

7 Sex, Gender, and the New Feminism 93

8 Revolutions Left and Right 109

9 Small Steps, Giant Leaps, New Concerns 131

10 Minority Empowerment: From Margin to Mainstream 146

11 Sucking in the Seventies (or, That 70s Chapter) 162

12 Legacies 177

Index 199

Christopher Strain is Associate Professor of History & American Studies at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Pure Fire: Self-Defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era (2005), Burning Faith: Church Arson in the American South (2008), and Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life (2010). In 2006, he was named Researcher of the Year at Florida Atlantic University; that same year he served as Visiting Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute of Harvard University, where he participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, "African American Struggles in the Twentieth Century."

C. B. Strain, Florida Atlantic University