Chicago '68
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- $33.99
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- $33.99
Publisher Description
Entertaining and scrupulously researched, Chicago '68 reconstructs the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago—an epochal moment in American cultural and political history. By drawing on a wide range of sources, Farber tells and retells the story of the protests in three different voices, from the perspectives of the major protagonists—the Yippies, the National Mobilization to End the War, and Mayor Richard J. Daley and his police. He brilliantly recreates all the excitement and drama, the violently charged action and language of this period of crisis, giving life to the whole set of cultural experiences we call “the sixties.”
“Chicago '68 was a watershed summer. Chicago '68 is a watershed book. Farber succeeds in presenting a sensitive, fairminded composite portrait that is at once a model of fine narrative history and an example of how one can walk the intellectual tightrope between 'reporting one’s findings’ and offering judgements about them.”—Peter I. Rose, Contemporary Sociology
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For Yippie activists led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, police clubbing of demonstrators outside the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention was a sign that revolution was at hand. To Mayor Richard Daley, street theater represented a direct threat to his political machine, while the antiwar movement used Chicago as a platform to protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam and racism. This fast-paced chronicle by a professor of history at the University of Hawaii illuminates the hopes and self-righteousness of both protestors and protectors of the social order. The Yippies tried to interject hippie culture into the politics of participatory democracy, but, argues Farber, they fell back on slogans and charismatic leadership. His thoughtful narrative captures the energy and optimism of the '60s, and it includes revealing cameos of Paul Krassner, Ed Sanders, Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden and other familiar figures. Photos not seen by PW.
