The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974 - Hardcover

Marwick, Arthur

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019210022X ISBN 13: 9780192100221

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1998

Synopsis

If the World Wars defined the first half of the twentieth century, the sixties defined the second half, providing the pivot on which modern times have turned. From popular music to individual liberties, the tastes and convictions of the Western world are indelibly stamped with the impact of that tumultuous decade.
Now one of the world's foremost historians provides the definitive look at this momentous time. Framing the sixties as a period stretching from 1958 to 1974, Arthur Marwick argues that this long decade ushered in nothing less than a cultural revolution--one that raged most clearly in the United States, Britain, France, and Italy. Writing with wit and verve, he brilliantly recaptures the events and movements that shaped our lives: the rise of a youth subculture across the West; the impact of post Beat novels and New Wave cinema; the sit ins and marches of the civil rights movement; Britain's surprising rise to leadership in fashion and music; the emerging storm over Vietnam; the Paris student rising of 1968; the new concern for poverty; the growing force of feminism and the gay rights movement; and much more. As Marwick unfolds his vivid narrative, he illuminates this remarkable era--both its origins and its impact. He concludes that it was a time that saw great leaps forward in the arts, in civil rights, and in many other areas of society and politics. But the decade also left deep divisions still felt today.
Written with tremendous force of insight and narrative power, The Sixties promises to be the single most important account of the single most important decade of our times.

About this title

About the Author

Arthur Marwick is one of Britain's leading social and cultural historians. He has been Professor of History at the Open University since 1969, and is the author of a number of best-selling history books, including The Nature of History and British Society since 1945.

Reviews

...Marwick has made a genuine contribution, first in affirming the reality of the cultural revolution as it manifested itself in so many spheres of life; then in showing how that revolution permeated and transformed mainstream society; and finally in putting it all in an international perspective, exposing the differences and yet basic similarities provided by the perspective.

A scholarly, earnest, sometimes dense cultural history of the decade. English historian Marwick (Britain in Our Century, 1985, etc.) seems determined to rescue the 1960s, both from orthodox leftist historians (who view the era as an explosion of the youthful bourgeoisie) and from conservatives (who believe that it brought about the decline and fall of Western civilization). Marwick enumerates the periods cultural, artistic, and political achievements, which, he believes, really began in 1958 (the year big business headed full-tilt at the youth market, and the year popular music shifted to rock 'n roll) and ended in 1974, when the oil crisis reached consumers around the world and set off a wave of conservative reaction. The authors viewpoint is European. Much of what he says will be unfamiliar to American readers (as, for instance, when he discusses the role of upper-crust English schools in shaping political radicalism). Much else, however, concerns common ground, especially when Marwick writes about music. Hes also perceptive about the literature of the time and how it influenced other forms of expression. For example, he includes an interview with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, who reminisces about the influence of Jack Kerouacs autobiographical novel On the Road on British youth in the late 1950s. And Marwick has a lot to tell us about the student revolt in France and Italy of 1968 and 1969. Occasionally, he gets a little too pedantically encyclopedic for his own good, as in examining the miniskirt, which, almost always worn with tights, was a very popular, and even tenacious, fashion, being worn and argued over after the advent of hot pants . . . and then, in the classic fashion pattern of extreme innovation followed by extreme reaction, the maxiskirt, which reached to the ankles. Even then, however, he offers a fine resource for students of the era. And for those who remember Marcuse, McLuhan, and Marx fondly, Marwicks tome will offer a stimulating stroll down memory lane. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019210022X
• ISBN 13: 9780192100221
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 924