Introduction
The Sixties and the Postwar Legacy
The Seventies began, of course, in the wake of "the Sixties" and have remained
ever since in their shadow — the sickly, neglected, disappointing stepsister to
that brash, bruising blockbuster of a decade. "The sober, gloomy seventies," as
one journalist put it, "seemed like little more than just a prolonged anticlimax
to the manic excitements of the sixties." Sure, pundits constantly debate the
era's parameters, suggesting that the "real Sixties" did not begin until the
escalation of the war in Vietnam, the riots in Watts, or the Summer of Love, or
that they lasted until Nixon's resignation, the fall of Saigon, the breakup of
the Beatles or release of "The Hustle." But they agree on a common portrait —
the same mug shot of the Sixties as a time of radical protest and flower power,
polarization, experimentation, and upheaval. Depending on one's point of view,
they are the source of everything good or everything evil in contemporary life.
If one date delineated the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the
Seventi ... read full excerpt from: The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics ebook
