Summary and Reviews of 1968 by Mark Kurlansky

Media Reviews

Chicago Tribune Splendid... evocative... No one before Kurlansky has managed to evoke so rich a set of experiences in so many different places - and to keep the story humming.

San Francisco Chronicle Highly readable... a rich perspective... Kurlansky is a writer of remarkable talents and interests.

The Seattle Times Kurlansky writes with a historian's diligence.... [He] traces skillfully the astounding streams of revolt converging in that historic year.... A colorful, highly evocative report on the awfulness and the idealism of the time.

Bookmarks Magazine Kurlansky is the first to admit that his youthful, anti-Vietnam bent is anything but objective; after all, he came of age during the turbulent '60s. Yet, rather than romanticize his (and, it seems, many sympathetic critics') former causes, he offers an accessible, generally unbiased account of the year. He provides scant explanation of the origins of this near-global revolution; nor does he link the events of 1968 to the present day. Still, it's the best biography of a year we have. And those who lived through it will, as they read 1968, relive an intensely personal journey.

The Washington Post's Book World Many of us are still haunted by the events of 1968. Just two weeks ago in Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean recalled the '60s: "When I was 21 years old, it was the end of the civil rights era, and America had paid an enormous price. Martin Luther King had been killed. Bobby Kennedy was dead.... But it was also a time of great hope. Medicare had passed. Head Start had passed. The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. We felt like we were all in it together." Mark Kurlansky echoes Dean when he writes: "The thrilling thing about the year 1968 was that it was a time when significant segments of population all over the globe refused to be silent about the many things that were wrong with the world. . .. And this gave the world a sense of hope that it has rarely had, a sense that where there is wrong, there are always people who will expose it and try to change it."

Kirkus Reviews A masterful chronicle of a year when the world was living dangerously and everybody's hair was afire.....Says so much so well about a year that still steals your breath away, even with so many of its hopes dashed.

Library Journal Strongly recommended for most public and academic libraries.

Publishers Weekly 1968 is a thorough and loving (perhaps a bit too loving of the boomer generation) tapestry--or time capsule.

Booklist - Keir Graff .... what can be gained from yet another Boomer report on the 1960s? Surprisingly, quite a bit. In examining the momentous events of 1968, he refolds the map so the U.S. is no longer the center of student protest.....This is very fine--and surprisingly timely-- although its scope and complexity may keep it from finding the broad popularity of the author's earlier works, where we delighted in the surprising histories of ordinary things.