The Incredible '60s: The Stormy Years That Changed America

by Jules Archer, Todd Gitlin (Foreword)

We often remember the 1960s as a time of peace and love, but it was also a time of assassinations, riots, and an unpopular war. Furthermore, more than three million people took to the streets in violent antiwar and civil rights demonstrations during this decade. In The Incredible '60s, renowned historian Jules Archer brings the glories and tragedies of the sixties to a new generation, with a comprehensive history of sixties counterculture, the Vietnam War and the resistance movement, civil rights, feminism, science, rock 'n' roll, and more. Covering everything from the Kennedy Era and the Freedom Riders to nuclear weapons and the Cold War, Archer aims to make sure important history is not forgotten, and this is a story for young people--a story about seeing what needs to be changed in the world and making that change happen.

Jules Archer traveled to distant parts of the globe in search of information, sometimes going back to original sources. For this book he had dinner with Elvis Presley, had tea with two Australian prime ministers, climbed a volcano via camel, and swum the Seine in Paris at midnight. His adventurous spirit and enthusiasm will be contagious to young readers who may just leave their own indelible mark on a future decade. Sky Pony Press is pleased to add this important and thought-provoking piece of historical literature to its new Jules Archer History for Young Readers series.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 1986

About the author

Jules Archer was an American author who wrote many volumes of non-fiction history for a general audience and for young adults.

Archer served four years during World War II with the Army Air Corps in the Pacific theater. He is the author of many books on U.S. history, political events, and personalities, including The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR, and Jungle Fighters: A G.I. War Correspondent's Experiences in the New Guinea Campaign.

Reviews

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was well written and a good reminder for one who was in university and early career for the events of the turbulent sixties. Good read for those of us close to the civil rights and Anti-Vietnam movements.

[Mary Therese · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I know of that captures that incredible decade.

[Dillon Holz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Incredible Sixties is a nonfiction book written by Jules Archer that attempts to summarize all of the important events that took place during the 1960’s. The book is broken down into individual chapters, each telling the reader about a separate event or series of events within the timespan. I feel this sort of layout is ideal for a book covering as much information as this. It allows the twelve or so most important things that happened during the sixties to be explained thoroughly instead of to going in chronological order and mentioning all of the major events that took place but not explaining them as well. This book layout also made it very interesting for the nonfiction type by filling each chapter full of information to keep the reader’s attention. When you are constantly learning fascinating new things, you are compelled to continue reading.

The chapters in which I felt most engaged in were the ones explaining the Vietnam War and its resistance (Chapters 5 and 6). For someone who hasn’t lived through many major protests, I found the concept of mass resistance across the nation to be very foreign. I was amazed at how many instances where the National Guard and local police forces were needed in certain situations to disperse a crowd. I was also surprised by the methods, such as tear gas and club beatings, used to disperse these sometimes-violent protests and how these methods were seemingly targeted at members of the media. It was hard to believe that such a violent and foreign event could take place in one of America’s largest cities just 50 years ago. I also enjoyed learning about the details of the Vietnam War because I previously had limited knowledge on its beginnings and why the U.S would go around the world to fight a group of Vietnamese soldiers. In the end, it was because of all these shocking facts and stories used by Jules Archer that I chose these chapters as the ones that interested me most.

The least interesting part of this non-fiction book, though, was the chapter on artists and writers of the time (Chapter 9). I am personally not the type of person who would be fascinated with different types of art to begin with so I was even less interested in art from 50 years ago. Archer referenced a lot of works that I had never heard of and had no way of relating to. Because of this, I felt no real connection to what he was explaining and it became almost a chore to read. I’m sure someone who actually lived during this era and knew of more than just a couple movies that played during the time would enjoy some aspects of the chapter but it just wasn’t for me. It was interesting, however, how Jules Archer showed how the current events of the time played a role in the art, books, and movies that were produced. For example, Archer explained how the movie “From Russia, With Love” showed the fascination with the Soviet Union/Cold War and the beginnings of a movie genre in which spies were the main characters (James Bond). This just shows how interesting this book was as a whole considering even my least favorite chapter including some things I found fun to read about.

Jules Archer used an intermediate range of vocabulary when composing this book. I managed to read through it without having to look up the definitions of any words. You can usually use the context provided to find out the definitions of some confusing political terms used to explain certain situations. This mild use of vocabulary provides even more of a reason why today’s generation should read this book. I am a strong believer that we need to know what happened in the past in order to handle events in the future. The 1960’s certainly provided a variety of events that we could use when making future decisions. As far as themes go, the book really didn’t have an overlying theme because of its nonfiction nature, but the 1960’s as a whole had a definite one. This theme would be that of resistance. The Civil Rights movement resisted the oppression of blacks in America during the same time college students were resisting their parents’ ways of doing things. These series of events plus the obvious Vietnam War resistance created a very clean-cut theme for the era.

My overall favorite part about the book was that it made you think critically about the events in the ‘60s taking place today. While reading the book, I just couldn’t get over the fact that nothing like this has ever happened in my lifetime. The word that kept coming to mind was: foreign. It didn’t seem possible that events such as the mass-rioting could take place on American soil. Some of the information almost seemed made up it was so unthinkable today. An organized group made up of thousands of white Americans with the sole purpose of resisting equal rights for blacks using violence? Unheard of in the present day where most people are considered equal compared to 50 years ago. If anything, these disturbing events of the sixties can be used heading into the future to avoid these problems from arising once again.

To conclude, this was a great book that I would recommend to anyone interested in history. You can’t say that you are educated in all there is to know about history until taking a close look at the 1960’s. So many things came from this decade that it’s impossible to overlook. These things range anywhere from improved security for politicians as a result of the Kennedy assassinations to new inventions for consumers due to the Space Race. Before ending, though,I would like to point out one thing to look for when reading this book. The tendency for bias toward the rebellious during the sixties is present as Jules Archer even writes in the book that he was part of the “rebels” when he lived in the 1960’s. He opposed the Vietnam War and advocated for governmental reform. It would be nice to see the U.S government’s side to the story in situations such as Vietnam but personally I already knew a lot about what the government had claimed and found what the rebellious fought for quite a bit more interesting. The bias still doesn’t negate the overall quality of this book and I simply cannot recommend it enough for those fascinated with the sixties like myself.

[Emilie Katherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, all I have to say is that this book is VERY poorly written. That’s all bye 👋🏼