Maurice Isserman is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History at Hamilton College, and is the author of If I Had a Hammer: The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left. He lives in upstate New York. Michael Kazin is Professor of History at Georgetown University, and is the author of The Populist Persuasion: An American History and Barons of Labor. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
"This is the finest and most comprehensive history of `The Sixties'
ever written. Professors Isserman and Kazin skillfully combine
insightful analysis and captivating narrative to demonstrate how
and why that political and cultural civil war haunts us yet. Their
book is therefore more than another history: it is an act of
engaged citizenship."--Nelson Lichtenstein, University of
Virginia
"America Divided is a riveting read, brimming with lively
anecdotes, original insights, sharp analysis, and scrupulous
scholarship. It is, far and away, the most compelling single volume
history of the 1960s currently available. A superb book."--Douglas
Brinkley, University of New Orleans
"From 60s radical to 60s historian is a long passage and few have
navigated it more intelligently than Maurice Isserman and Michael
Kazin. America Divided reconstructs the decade in all its almost
unbelievable complexity, presenting its ever-unfolding movements
and events in clear, simple, and straightforward fashion,
explaining ideological issues without ever being ideological
itself. Its discussion of the disappearance of the liberal
consensus
under simultaneous assaults from the left and the right provide a
necessary foundation for understanding American politics today.
According to an already-old joke, `If you can remember the 60s you
weren't really
there,' but the joke is wrong. Reading Isserman and Kazin, it
becomes possible not only to remember the decade but to at last
begin to understand it."--Elinor Langer, Fellow of the Open Society
Institute and author of Josephine Herbst
"When two accomplished historians of the calibre of Isserman and
Kazin turn their talents to a survey of the Sixties, the result is
an engrossing narrative and a highly intelligent analysis of the
era's cultural, political, and social events. I found myself
eagerly turning pages to see how they would handle the decade's key
actors, moments, and trends, and was always rewarded with judicious
and insightful treatments."--Lizabeth Cohen, Harvard University
"America Divided is an indispensable history of the 1960s. Isserman
and Kazin grapple with the abundant paradoxes of an era of youthful
activism and resurgent conservatism, of sexual revolution and
religious revival, of naive political optimism and growing distrust
in government. Their compelling narrative helps make sense of the
most contentious political and cultural debates of our
time."--Thomas J. Sugrue, University of Pennsylvania
"Recommended for academic, secondary school, and public
libraries."--Library Journal
"In their new synthesis history of the United States in the 1960s,
former student radicals Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin
reinterpret the decade as a politically complicated 'dramatization
of our humanity,' not a Baby Boomer morality tale of sex, drugs,
and protest."--Boston Review of Books
"A thoroughly detailed, well-written history of the tumultuous
recent past."--Kirkus Reviews
"Isserman and Kazin present a book of unconventional wisdom. In the
light of their research, many of the popular conceptions about the
1960s prove to be wide of the mark." "Thanks to this provocative
and spirited book, we can begin to appreciate the 1960s as a time
when 'things fell apart' only to be refashioned by people of
conviction into the New America."--Ed Voves, The Philadelphia
Inquirer
"a basic introduction to the period, debunks popular myths about
the role of government and the nature of the counterculture, and
helps call attention to overlooked parts of the story, ranging from
changes in religious practice to the rise of a conservative social
movement....sets the standard by which popular accounts of the
period will be judged in the future."--Edward Cohn, The Boston Book
Review
"A knowing and highly readable narrative"--Evan Thomas, Washington
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