At the end of another turbulent year I chose this book to get some perspective on how other important years are viewed decades later. This didn't turn out to be an easy read because it was a bit boring at times. There are a lot of social and political problems in America that can be traced back to some key moments in 1968 that shaped the world we live in today, of particular interest is the choice by Nixon to run a law-and-order platform in the presidential election that year as the Republican party forever turned away from moderate candidates and went hard for the racist Southern vote.

1968 for me was the year that I missed because I was inducted into the USAF and went to Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas for basic training followed by technical training at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi. So when I read 1968: The Year That Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky, there were more than a few surprises in store for me. So this is what was happening while I was focused on becoming an Airman and eventually moving to my first assignment in Japan. Learning after the fact all of the things that happened in 1968 I was amazed at all of the momentous events that I missed at that time while off to serve my country. Until I found this book title I had not realized what a pivotal year 1968 was as I was preoccupied as described above. To many it was the year of the Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap; avant-garde theater; the upsurge of the women's movement; and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. Many of these participants have not faded away but have become the establishment they fought against and are now college professors teaching their ideas to a new generation. The author does an admirable job of sifting though all of the events from around the world in 1968 to select and present the most transformative in this book. Whether you were there or not (as in my case), this is a fascinating take on a pivotal year in history!

Fantastic summary of not just the people, movements , and issues in 1968 but the years leading up to it as well. The author takes his time pointing his spotlight around the world as 1968 unfolds and progresses to all that happened. I was left feeling that 1968 was basically a year long social and political earthquake across the world—no continent was left unscathed.

Things I want to remember:

"Four historic factors merged to create 1968: the example of a Civil Rights movement, which at the time was so new and original; a generation that felt so different and so alienated that it rejected all forms of authority; a war that was hated so universally around the world that it provided a cause for all the rebels seeking one; and all of this occurring at the moment that television was coming of age but was still new enough not to have yet become controlled, distilled, and packaged the way it is today."

Kronkite was one of the last journalists to reject that he was the story. Kronkite wanted to be a conduit--he valued the trust he had and believed it came from truthfulness. He always believed that it was CBS, not just him, that had the trust of America.

Violence requires few ideas, but nonviolence requires imagination. "When there is violence, the message gets lost." - quote by Daniel Cohn-Bendit (European politician. Born stateless to a German-Polish Ashkenazi Jewish family, later gained German citizenship.)

Mario Savio - American anti-war activist, member of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. His most famous speech was "Bodies Upon the Gears" (given 2 Dec 1964)...

I very much enjoyed this review of the year when I began gathering independence. 1968 gave me expansion from my own experience to a worldwide view. Kurlansky opens with an admission that he was on the side of the rebels, and he writes with that bias. In fact, either he has remarkably good sources or he was there himself for some of the events - probably both. Colorful, visual, and engaging, 1968: THE YEAR THAT ROCKED THE WORLD is a history worthy of an multiple award-winning author.

My favorite History of 2017

Here's a truism for you: Americans love to talk about themselves. One look in the American History section of even a Canadian bookseller will show you how much (to name but one place to find such talk). There is a wealth of US History, from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to the World Wars to the Vietnam War to the Gulf Wars to the "War on Terror" to every other interesting thing that has come out of the USA on those shelves, so when there is a dearth of written history surrounding some topic of American interest, the silence is noticeable.

The radical side of the '60s is just such a case (as is the Korean War, but I will save that for another day). What little there is written about the Radical Sixties, and there is very little in comparison with all other US History topics, comes mostly from the '60s themselves, and mostly from writers who were there, who were agitating, who were putting their bodies and reputations on the line. And of those books the bulk are by and about the Black Panther Party (which is fantastic, and I highly recommend that avenue of study to you if you haven't followed that avenue before).

Hence, whenever a book appears on my radar talking about the Radical Sixties -- with Nam as a backdrop to and motivation for radicalism rather than being presented as the single most important event of an American generation -- I pounce.

Mark Kurlansky's 1968: The Year that Rocked the World is such a book, focusing on the epicentric year in not just US radicalism but world radicalism, and it found me in the perfect mood to be reminded of how and why we fight the status quo.

Not that Kurlansky is 100% dedicated to such an endeavour. No, there are times when Kurlansky's journalistic voice -- for this is much more a piece of excellent journalism as opposed to a critical / academic history of the period -- interjects, expressing a preference for slow (read "civilized") change over radical protest. I suspect Kurlansky does think the status quo needs changing, but slow change without upheaval. Yet, and to his great credit, Kurlansky doesn't allow his partiality for more peaceful practices to cloud his judgment of the radicals he's writing about.

Tom Hayden, Angela Y. Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Muhammad Ali, Alexander Dubček, Bobby Kennedy, Betty Friedan, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Mark Rudd (all radicals in their own ways) and countless others get a fair assessment from Kurlansky's reportage, and only the slightest of Yankee-patriot (chauvanistic) bias slips in when the radical in question happens to be Czech or German or French or Mexican.

What 1968 does and does best is to report on the year itself. From January to December, from Pope Paul VI declaring January 1st, 1968 a day of peace to Apollo 8 orbiting the moon and sending us the first pictures of humanty's first Earth Rise, Kurlansky catches us up on all the upheaval, all the anger, all the striving, all the failures, all the moments that would and do resonate right up until today. Well ... maybe not "all." More like "most of." Kurlansky does tend to gloss over some events and offer others in deep detail. He loves Czechoslovakia and the Prague Spring, he has a thing for the student uprisings at Columbia University, and he dutifully gives us the happenings in and around the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but there are happenings around the world and in the US that only get passing mention. Really, he had enough to work with to produce a 1,200 page tome rather than this well written, eminently readable 383 page primer on 1968, but he was going for something more intimate and personal, something that spoke to him and that he hoped would speak to his readers. In that ... he succeeded.

Moreover, I found a number of people and places and events to explore more deeply in 1968, and I enjoyed being reminded of things I'd forgotten -- I even loved the little snippets from around the world that helped to remind the readers that there is always something important going on somewhere, even if it isn't your own backyard. But I leave 1968 wishing it had been even more than it was, hungering for more about the Radical Sixties, wishing there was a way to rekindle that spirit in the same way again, despite the internet and all the ways those in power have learned to derail our radicalism.

Who knows? Wherever Kurlansky's 1968 leads me next may be exactly what I was looking for all along, then I can credit Mark Kurlansky for doing what I had hoped he would do in the pages of his own book. And if that doesn't happen ... 1968 is still well worth the time. What a fucking year.

Fifty years have now passed since that fateful year of 1968. Although I was a junior in high school and played little to no part in the events of the day, I can still remember reading about and watching TV nightly to find out about what was going on. It was truly a troubled, violent time; yet no one seemed to have any inhibitions or reluctance to voice their opinions or their feelings about the events happening in our own country as well as around the world. But whichever side you came down on, you did it knowingly and with a firm belief in your decision. You were one part of a whole, and the whole could not exist if the parts broke away. Individuality was not the way to achieve change. Mark Kurlansky did a good job of including everything from that year, although at times some of it seemed to drag just a bit. But he did a really fine job of expressing the feelings of the people in 1968 and of showing how everything worked together (whether for good or bad). Reading this book and remembering that time helped clarify why, in the current political atmosphere and in the current state of affairs of the world, I feel much more despondent and much less hopeful than I have ever felt about the future. In 1968 people came together for causes, whether they were right or not. In 2018 I feel that everyone is concerned with one cause only - self above all else.

The book is interesting but may require some time to read. You can't just sit down and read it. A very-well written book, it covers a lot of history and lots of political history and theory. So get it from the library or get it on a reader, start it and read for awhile. When you need a break, read a fun book. Then return to 1968 and read some more. In the end you will be glad you did.

How much we forget. 1968 was a monumental year in many ways. I got married that year. There was a police riot at the Democratic National convention. Two assassinations. Riots in cities. A spirit of rebellion against authority all around the world. The Vietnam War got worse with the Tet Offensive. The president decided not to run for reelection. The capture of the Pueblo by North Korea. Prague Spring followed by the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. And the election of Nixon. Many people were sure it was the end not just of the United States, but of civilization as well.

Media attention was essential for the non-violent movements to succeed. Something they learned quickly was that in order to get that attention, non-violence had to be met with violence. If the response was equally non-violent, the media would yawn and go elsewhere. Martin Luther King learned this from the police chief of Albany, GA, Laurie Pritchett, who thwarted the "Albany Movement" in 1961-62 by responding to King's demonstration in a completely non-violent manner. It completely undercut the movement there. They were forced to target cities with hot-headed police chiefs and mayors. Video of police beating up peaceful demonstrators was priceless. It's a lesson that police in many communities still have not learned.

1968 was the beginning of a new era in television. Videotape immediacy and satellite transmission meant that the war could now be seen almost live from the battleground. The Tet Offensive, a military defeat for the Viet Cong (they were never to mount a cohesive campaign again) was a media victory for them. Westmoreland's staff had been talking about a light at the end of the tunnel, but the public now realized it was an oncoming train. The police riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago were broadcast live. That had never happened before. People could see Mayor Daley call Abraham Ribicoff a Jew motherfucker on the convention floor. Those in power didn't like that unedited version of reality. Hubert Humphrey announced that "when" he became president he would have the FCC "look into that." The great liberal as authoritarian. Then again, the violence against the Hippies probably helped Nixon win the election.

Abbie Hoffman understood the power of television. Many people thought he was just a clown, but he understood that clowns attracted attention and that brought TV. TV didn't just report the news any more, it shaped it, and Hoffman, older than most of the other radicals at the time understood its importance.

In the meantime, a perfect metaphor for the bifurcation of society happened in the White House when Lady Bird Johnson invited Eartha Kitt, born in the cotton fields of South Carolina, to a dinner attended mostly by rich white liberal women. Topic of the day was how to address the crime wave (translation: blacks out of control in the cities.) She took it upon herself to suggest that having predominantly black army you sent to fight a war they didn't believe in might be part of the problem. After an uncomfortable silence, Lady Bird graciously suggested she wasn't able to see the world the same way not having had the same experience as Kitt. There it was in a nutshell. *

2020 looks like a walk in the park in comparison.

Slogans are always useful in helping to garner support and defining an issue. The Democrats have failed rather miserably in picking slogans recently, "Defund the Police" being an excellent example. You should not have to explain a slogan. The civil rights movement picked cogent ones. "Freedom Riders" has such an appealing ring to it and needs no explanation. The non-violent movement had the moral high ground and the example of the protester who took his shoes off before leaping on top of a police car to give a speech because he didn't want to scratch the car was emblematic. Running a non-violent movement takes so much more work and planning than just being violent and reacting with rage.

Anyone over fifty will be riveted. Those under should read it to understand why we are where we are today. A must read.



*Kitt's comment: "The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don't have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons – and I know what it's like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson – we raise children and send them to war." As a result the CIA put together a phony dossier on Kitt, that was later unearthed by Seymour Hersh in 1975, that branded her as a "sadistic nymphomaniac" and got her blacklisted. (https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/03/ar...)

The year 1968 marks a special passage for me: I became passionate about the news of the day, even though I wasn't quite eleven yet (September birthday). Kansas City was a tinder box in 1968. My father, a policeman, was issued riot gear b/c there were race riots downtown. It was one of the few times in my life I ever saw him scared. He was worried for mom and me, and they talked about moving us south (to their home county) until everything settled down. We'd seen the body count from VIetnam for a while, so that wasn't new in 1968, but the war news was awful all year. According to the author, 1968 saw the largest body count of any year during the Vietnam War. And public opinion definitely turned against the war. And I was heartbroken when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
All this leads up to WHY I snapped up this book when I saw it. 1968 was a seminal year in my formation. It was a seminal year around the world apparently. There were many student protests around the world. The author does a really good job looking at the rise of the students, and student protests in the US, Germany, Mexico, Czechoslovakia, and other places. He also helped me understand the "Prague Spring" and subsequent Soviet invasion. Kurlansky goes into detail about the politics behind the Democratic and Republican Conventions, and the candidates, which I enjoyed.
What Kurlansky did NOT do was go into any great detail on how the US public responded to the two assassinations: Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy. I was expecting more info on both, especially Kennedy - probably b/c of my aforementioned heartbreak when Kennedy was murdered.
So while I appreciated learning far more about worldwide protest, I feel like the assassinations, the Conventions, and the Olympics took a back seat to all the student uprisings.
And my greatest caveat at all to anyone interested in this book: Kurlansky took a fascinating subject and made it deadly DULL. I really had to force myself to keep reading sometimes. At least he ended "1968" on a hopeful point - with the iconic picture of "Earth Rise" taken from the Apollo 8 mission to orbit the moon. It was a hopeful end to a depressing book delineating issues that we still deal with on a world-wide basis. 3.6 stars, reluctantly rounded up to 4.

Something changed in 1968. It is called "almost everything." The author takes readers through every wrenching month of that unprecedented year, drawing on painstaking research and the art of a very fine and deliberate writer. More than any other achievement, of which there are many in this book, Kurlansky gives his readers a chance to better understand today ... right now. So much of our current national debates about Iraq, the Patriot Act, and our teetering moral authority in world affairs, springboards in some way from that year. We were given many lessons then, some forgotten, many resurfacing as we again find our nation confronting major obstacles in world affairs. 1968 surely requires the critical reader to consider what we learned then and what it means now. This is a book about history ... repeating itself. Read it for greater context; read it for insights; but most of all, read it to examine the most crucial issues confronting a nation ... today.

Did not enjoy this as much as Salt. In this book Kurlansky provides a history of the events of 1968 (focusing on Prague Spring, Racial tensions and civil rights in the US, Vietnam protests, Cuba, Biafra, the US election, Democratic Convention in Chicago, assassinations of MLK and Bobby Kennedy, and student protests in Paris, Spain, and Mexico). The thesis is that 1968 was the crucial year in a short time period of the late 1960s in which the mass-audience, powerful imagery, and sheer speed of media, and TV in particular, in a society for which this was new, not yet passe, and the existence of a generation gap between the experiences of youth and those of an older gerneration provided a context for demonstrations and a new orientation to the world. The idea is not particularly new, although Kurlansky does a nice job of trying to weave the interconnectedness of events and persons together into a popular narrative.

It is worth reading for the history of it, but coming as it does some three decades after the events it describes, the story is more like the closing of a time past then it is opening up the revelations of the present. Kurlansky wants to make the case that 1968 has lasting significance in the current age. Insofar as we our experiences today are shaped by the events of that time period, this is quite true, but insofar as our own world has progressed beyond the contexts of that time and learned (for good or bad) the lessons of that age, the time we are in is sufficiently past 1968 that the events described may no longer seem to have pressing, immediate relevance.

1968: THE YEAR THAT ROCKED THE WORLD
Mark Kurlansky

WOW, this was everything that I thought it would be. Despite being only 11/12 in 1968, it was a memorable year for me. My sister and cousin graduated from high school, I changed age groups in horse shows, and every time I saw in front of the TV there was someone killed in the civil rights movement. I was unaware of so many of the things that didn't stick out to a child of that age.

I have always been aware of this year and the importance it played in changing the world because, before it, I could have been a nurse, a kindergarten teacher, a telephone operator, or some similar job, but after, the world was open. If you weren't alive then, it was a major turning point in this country, and knowing the history is important.

I found the book riveting and devoured EVERY page. But I was and still am a history nerd, so perhaps that influences me. But I don't think so.

5 stars

Happy Reading!

I was fascinated by this book having lived through that era. At the time I thought the Viet Nam war was just a terrible waste of human life and didn't understand what the real motives were of the people behind the protests. Mr. Kurlansky made it clear that the movement was about furthering Marxism, establishing world communism and overthrowing the US government and that the New Democrat Party is in sinc with that end. It was interesting how he downplayed the violent terrorism of the Weather Underground and the involvement of the likes of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. This book was an eye opener to me as it made me realize the true intent of left wing politics today.