The Sixties - by Arthur Marwick (Paperback)

About the Book

One of the world's foremost historians argues that this long decade ushered in nothing less than a cultural revolution--one that raged most rampantly in the United States, Britain, France, and Italy. 48 halftones.

Book 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.

Review Quotes

"Marwick has made 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."--The Washington Post Book World
"An ambitious synthesis.... Mr. Marwick's prodigious research and encyclopedic scope will make this book a helpful and entertaining reference work for a time to come."--Washington Times


"Marwick has made 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."--The Washington Post Book World
"An ambitious synthesis.... Mr. Marwick's prodigious research and encyclopedic scope will make this book a helpful and entertaining reference work for a time to come."--Washington Times



"Marwick has made 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."--The Washington Post Book World
"An ambitious synthesis.... Mr. Marwick's prodigious research and encyclopedic scope will make this book a helpful and entertaining reference work for a time to come."--Washington Times


"Marwick has made 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."--The Washington Post Book World
"An ambitious synthesis.... Mr. Marwick's prodigious research and encyclopedic scope will make this book a helpful and entertaining reference work for a time to come."--Washington Times

About the Author

Arthur John Brereton Marwick (29 February 1936 - 27 September 2006) was a professor in history. Born in Edinburgh, he was a graduate of Edinburgh University and Balliol College, Oxford.

Marwick was appointed the first Professor of History at the Open University in 1969, after lecturing at Edinburgh for ten years. He held visiting professorships at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Stanford University, Rhodes College and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He was a left-wing social and cultural historian but critical of Marxism and other approaches to history that he believed stressed the importance of metanarrative over archival research. He was also a critic of postmodernism, seeing it as a "menace to serious historical study". It was also the methodology of the postmodernists to which he was opposed, "the techniques to deconstruction or discourse analysis have little value compared with the sophisticated methods historians have been developing over years".