Product Details

The Washington Post - Glenn Frankel

Historians hate the idea that you can carve the past into neat little slices, era by era, like fine Velveeta, but publishers seem to love it. Gerard J. DeGroot, professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, tries to please both sides by offering what he calls "an impressionistic wandering through the landscape of a disorderly decade." Instead of an over-arching narrative, he serves up 67 short treatments of diverse moments and subjects—"shiny pieces of glass capable of being arranged into myriad realities." It's a clever concept, one that shows to advantage DeGroot's sweeping range of knowledge. He's done a gargantuan amount of research, is comfortable with the era's characters and the movements and is a reasonably entertaining narrator, with an eye for the arresting and the unusual.

Publishers Weekly

De Groot, a professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews (The Bomb: A Life), argues that our conventional view of the '60s as a time of ripe and productive counterculturalism and social revolution is a sham. He further argues that contemporary nostalgia for the hopefulness (which proved futile) and idealism (which proved fraudulent) of that turbulent decade led to virtually no positive advances. In DeGroot's view, not much was achieved for civil rights, women's liberation and environmental awareness, not to mention advances and great work in the visual, film and musical arts. The commonly accepted history of the decade, DeGroot insists, is "a collection of beliefs zealously guarded by those keen to protect something sacred." In the end, DeGroot envisions the '60s as a trivial period of self-indulgence on the part of the West and a bitterly tragic 10 years as they played out in other theaters (especially the Middle East and Southeast Asia). DeGroot deconstructs virtually all key icons of the era-Woodstock ("a festival, yes; a nation, no"), the Beatles, Dylan, student radicals, Haight-Ashbury, the sexual revolution and even Muhammad Ali-finding that their legends loom far larger than their realities. One might disagree, but DeGroot's book comprises a fascinating revisionist polemic. (Mar.)

K. B. Butter - Choice

DeGroot makes an important contribution to the literature through his inclusion of events outside the U.S. in the 1960s.

Jay Parini - Chronicle of Higher Education

DeGroot debunks this decade with bravura, relishing the ironies...[He] whirls through the era with a kind of manic energy...There is much to admire about this book, which is scrupulously researched and provocative. I thought I knew this period well, having lived through it intensely, but I was often surprised by the details that DeGroot churns up. He adds a great deal of nuance to memories...There was something fresh and strange about this brief era, and I refuse to let go of that. But I acknowledge that one must always keep its advances in perspective, and DeGroot's book--despite its dizzying aspect--goes a long way toward providing it.

Vancouver Sun

The cover art is swirly and psychedelic, but inside the author makes some trenchant points. [DeGroot] argues that in the 1960s, cynicism trumped hope and materialism quashed creativity, despite what people remember.

Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman - San Diego Union-Tribune

The Sixties Unplugged is a bracing blast for those who want their history unadulterated and straight up. Gerard J. DeGroot's freewheeling book offers 67 snapshots of this discordant decade, from raunchy Berkeley to barbwired Berlin...DeGroot's picaresque journey visits all the sacred shrines familiar to those who lived through the decade or heard about it at granddad's knee: People's Park in Berkeley, the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, the bomb cellars of Greenwich Village, the battlefield in South Vietnam and the bra-bonfire outside the Miss America pageant. But the author also includes less familiar stops on the Magical Mystery Tour, reminding readers that the Sixties with a capital S did not belong to America alone. DeGroot's disparate vignettes are grouped into 15 chapters that show that the unrest reached far beyond our coasts, washing onto the shores of Mexico, Britain, Indonesia, Israel, France, China and indeed everywhere that people carried placards or transistor radios.

James E. Person Jr. - Washington Times

DeGroot seeks to debunk the popular legend of the Sixties as a golden age of peace, love and understanding...He has written a book containing a little something to offend--and enlighten--just about everyone...DeGroot's The Sixties Unplugged stands as an informative, well-researched, mostly on-the-mark response to the claims of graying Baby Boomers about the wall-to-wall wonderfulness of that long, strange trip of a decade.

Caitlin O'Toole - Parade

In his meaty, rich text, DeGroot argues that the real spirit of the '60s has been lost in a deluge of nostalgia. The "free" decade, the freak show, was one in which China's Cultural Revolution proved to be one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. The sixties, he argues, were shaped more by the election of Reagan as the governor of California than by Kennedy. We've "chosen" to forget about Sharpeville, the Gaza Strip and Jakarta. The so-called "revolution" of the sixties, as we know it, didn't really exist. History, he argues, is not necessarily an accurate representation of what happened--but the way we view that it happened. His book, disguised as a coffee table "light read," is sure to spark controversy. It is, in effect a history book. Only in it, DeGroot says what few history books have the guts to.

Thomas A. Karel - Library Journal

For many years, the two standard histories of the 1960s in the United States have been Todd Gitlin's The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rageand Milton Viorst's Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s. A writer would need lots of confidence and energy to dethrone these works, and DeGroot (modern history, Univ. of St. Andrews, Scotland; A Noble Cause?: America and the Vietnam War) has what it takes. Told impressionistically rather than strictly chronologically (because "the 1960s lacked coherent logic"), this is perhaps an unorthodox history, but it's a solid work of scholarship nonetheless. The chapter titles, taken mostly from influential rock lyrics of the era (e.g., "You Say You Want a Revolution"), set the tone, although DeGroot doesn't dwell on the pop culture aspects of the Sixties. More serious in purpose, his book transcends the Sixties of "sacred memory" and considers the impact of world events (e.g., the Chinese Cultural Revolution) and the rise of American conservatism. As DeGroot comments, "The door of idealism was opened briefly and was then slammed shut." An impressive collage of 67 standalone essays, this work is an important contribution to the literature of contemporary history. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

A squarish yet thorough survey of the time of torment. Born in 1955, DeGroot (Modern History/Univ. of St. Andrews; Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest, 2006, etc.) was, he admits, an observer but not a participant in the tumultuous decade, and he approvingly quotes Louis Menand's contention that the problem with '60s history is "that it is written by those who care too much about the decade." DeGroot isn't exactly indifferent, but his interest seems to lie in looking at the time through the horn rims of the Silent Majority rather than the granny glasses of Greenwich Village. Indeed, at the outset he trumpets the fact that Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Berets" outsold John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance," though the terms are unclear: The former was released in 1966, the latter in mid-1969, so it stands to reason that the Sadler would have outsold the Lennon in the '60s. And Sadler is forgotten today, while Lennon lives on. Whatever the case, the datum points to DeGroot's concern to tell the story of the time as one in which "Sugar, Sugar" gets equal billing with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," in which blue-collar patriots outnumbered but did not outshout the Abbie Hoffmans of the world. The author visits familiar ground throughout; here his narrative touches on the Cuban missile crisis, there on the Civil Rights movement, here on Tet, there on Chappaquiddick. To his credit, DeGroot travels outside the United States too, calling on the London Mods and the protesters at Tlatelolco before the Mexico City massacre of 1968. The author attributes to the comic Robin Williams the tagline, "If you remember the '60s, you weren't there," which othersources attribute to Timothy Leary and even Grace Slick. But no matter. His dismissal of nostalgia for the era as misplaced could well be countered by observing that, given what has followed, it seems like not such a bad time after all, even if it makes Pat Buchanan foam at the mouth. A useful primer for those who, indeed, weren't there-but best read alongside eyewitness accounts such as Todd Gitlin's Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage and Ronald Fraser's 1968: A Student Generation in Revolt.

What People Are Saying

Without sentiment or tears, The Sixties Unplugged takes a fresh look at that insane and wonderful sore-thumb decade of the 20th Century. A thoroughly researched work of history, it is also a good story, beautifully told. --(William McKeen, author of Outlaw Journalist)

What People Are Saying

A truly international history that crosses geographical boundaries in all directions. No other book covers such a diverse array of events with such facility and verve. Vivid and compelling, The Sixties Unplugged captures the frenetic energy and disorientation of the decade.

--(Jeremi Suri, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison)

What People Are Saying

A truly international history that crosses geographical boundaries in all directions. No other book covers such a diverse array of events with such facility and verve. Vivid and compelling, The Sixties Unplugged captures the frenetic energy and disorientation of the decade.

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents