Review

General Books

In his preface to this work, Terry Anderson notes that in 1969, Life magazine published a special issue on the 1960s entitled, "The Decade of Tumult and change." Taking this sixties' self-definition as a cue, Anderson explores the decade as observed through the popular culture of the times. The Sixties is not a scholarly interpretation of the period, as might, for example, be seen in a work that adopts a thematic approach, or emphasizes major issues at the expense of the less significant. Rather, Anderson cites magazines such as Life, Look and Ladies' Home Journal; he references television shows from Howdy Doody to All in the Family; and he refers to the songs of Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. Using these examples and sources, Anderson—who wants to help his readers "make sense of the sixties" (vii)—traces the decade's significant social, political and foreign policy events chronologically from the 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina, sit-in to the American withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973.	1
A useful introductory chapter on Cold War America from 1945 to 1960 sets the stage for his overview of the decade, which Anderson sees as beginning with the "Years of Hope and Idealism, 1960 to 1963," peaking with the "Pinnacle of Liberalism, 1964 to 1965," and ending with a "Crescendo" and the decade's demise with the 1972 election. Anderson has separate chapters on "1968," the "Counterculture" and the "Days of Discord, 1969 to 1970." In his final chapter, Anderson evaluates the period, and argues that the 1960s was "a defining period in U.S. history," (222) which raised issues such as equality or inequality, war or peace, national interest versus individual rights, and personal behavior versus community standards.	2
Although the work ends with a six page additional reading list, which includes a reference to his more scholarly work, The Movement and the Sixties (1995), Anderson provides no footnotes or endnotes for The Sixties. Consequently, this book would be of little use to upper division students or scholars of the period. Nevertheless, The Sixties works well as an overview of the period, accessible to both high school seniors and lower division college students. Some history teachers may find the book's year by year approach, as seen through contemporary sources, to be a useful corrective or supplement to other interpretations of the era that stress mainly the American War in Vietnam or the Civil Rights Movement. Anderson's approach reminds readers of the complexity of the times, when Krushchev, Kennedy and King shared the headlines with communes, COINTELPRO and Cambodia. Several well-known black and white photos complement the text.	3
Linda Alkana California State University, Long Beach

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