Author: Maurice Isserman File Type: pdf America Divided The Civil War of the 1960s, Fourth Edition, is the definitive interpretive survey of the political, social, and cultural history of 1960s America. Written by two top experts on the era-Maurice Isserman, a scholar of the Left, and Michael Kazin, a specialist in Right-wing politics and culture-this book provides a compelling tale of this tumultuous era filled with fresh and persuasive insights.For the fourth edition the authors have updated the text in light of new research, offering strong and thoughtful analysis of such key topics as the U.S. entry into the Vietnam War, youth culture, the New Left, and women and minority groups. Presenting the most even-handed overview of this turbulent period, America Divided, Fourth Edition, defines, discusses, and analyzes all sides of the political, social, and cultural conflicts of the 1960s in a swiftly moving narrative. It is ideal for courses in 1960s America and America since 1945, or for anyone interested in the last fifty years of American History.New to This EditionullNew coverage of the Global Sixties, demonstrating how the cultural and political conflicts taking place in the United States were also occurring in other countries around the worldllUpdated and expanded conclusion discusses the 2008 presidential election and its relation to the 1960sllMore material on environmentalism, gay rights, and the womens movementllGreater coverage of popular culture, including cinema, theater, pop art, and musicllRevised and expanded discussions of the labor and the feminist movement and of the economics of the eralulFrom Publishers WeeklyHistorians (and former 1960s radicals) Isserman (If I Had a Hammer) and Kazin (The Populist Persuasion) mount an intermittently convincing reinterpretation of the 1960s. They start off strong with the Civil War Centennial Commissions remarkable decision to avoid any mention of slavery or emancipation in its five-year-long celebrationAvividly illustrating Americas forced normalcy as the decade began. But they go on to present an erratic vision of the decade. For instance, they inexplicably relegate the huge 1963 March on Washington to a brief mention. And the popular song Louie Louie merits a longer discussion than such critical texts and events as SDSs Port Huron statement and the Supreme Courts Griswold decision. Further, they artificially separate their discussion of politics, culture and spiritualityAthree strands that were intimately linked in the era. The authors revisionist take does offer some useful correctives, for instance, to the false notions that the War on Poverty was a massive giveaway program and that in the 60s liberalism held sway (Of the three main branches of the federal government, liberals held the commanding heights... in only one branch, the judiciary... liberalism was neither sufficiently coherent as a political philosophy nor sufficiently well organized as a political movement, to realize many ambitions). But the dearth of historical analysis of the why of this situation will leave many readers unsatisfied. In short, this is a sometimes useful if tepid and occasionally odd corrective to more lopsided views of the 60s. Photos. (Nov.) 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalIsserman (If I Had a Hammer) and Kazin (The Populist Persuasion) are two of the keenest practitioners of the history of American peoples politics. Both came of age in the 1960s, and each has a genetic link, respectively, to the Old Left and the grand liberal tradition of the 1930s. No better-suited collaborators could join to offer a history of the American Sixties. But while the book they offer is commendably balanced, the authors have not written a definitive text. Oddly, they cover most penetratingly terrain already well trod by more staid scholars conventional electoral politics, Vietnam, the four presidencies, the assassinations. Their most important contribution comes in demonstrating the rise not only of a New Left but a new and persistent Right. By contrast, their writing on the advent of the counterculture, movement politics, and especially urban black nationalism is familiar and too brief. The authors seem to be aiming this book at the undergraduate survey-course marketAeach reference to Jim Crow is accompanied by a parenthetical definitionAand apparently decided to economize on the very subjects still most unsettled by conventional wisdom. Nevertheless, this is recommended for academic, secondary school, and public libraries.AScott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.