1968: The Year that Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky

It was purely by accident that I chose to read this one just after the two Byatt novels that deal with the 60ies, especially A Whistling Woman, which deal with student unrest. Obviously student unrest played a big part in this one, in the US, France, Spain, Brazil and other places, though unrest at art schools in Britain was mentioned. The TET offensive, the My Lai massacre, assassination of ML King and Robert Kennedy, And Civil Rights and Democratic Convention violence. It's curious to read a retrospective on a period you lived through. Already married with a child, I was hardly a hippie in 1968, but I was teaching at a junior college in Delaware that was a "flunk out" school for expensive Eastern schools and the students were politically aware. Many on the faculty were, like me, recent grads and grad students and many were themselves active student protesters so that section of the book played best for me. I didn't watch TV much in those days so I don't remember the war on TV all that graphically, but I did watch the violence at the Democratic Convention and I kept up with the Civil Rights movements. An interesting book, but of necessity, painted with a broad brush.