Generation on Fire
Voices of Protest from the 1960s, an Oral History
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- CHF 12.00
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- CHF 12.00
Publisher Description
“An invigorating collection of fifteen testimonials from counter-culturists, conscientious objectors, and artists who came of age” during the ’60s (Publishers Weekly).
Many of the freedoms and rights Americans enjoy today are the direct result of those who defied the established order during the Civil Rights Era. It was an era that challenged both mainstream and elite American notions of how politics and society should function. In Generation on Fire, oral historian Jeff Kisseloff provides an eclectic and personal account of the political and social activity of the decade.
Among other things, the book offers firsthand accounts of what it was like to face a mob's wrath in the segregated South and to survive the jungles of Vietnam. It takes readers inside the courtroom of the Chicago Eight and into a communal household in Vermont. From the stage at Woodstock to the playing fields of the NFL and finally to a fateful confrontation at Kent State, Generation on Fire brings the '60s alive again.
This collection of never-before published interviews illuminates the ingrained social and cultural obstacles facing those working for change as well as the courage and shortcomings of those who defied "acceptable" conventions and mores. Sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, the stories in this volume celebrate the passion, courage, and independent thinking that led a generation to believe change for the better was possible.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist and pop historian Kisseloff presents an invigorating collection of 15 testimonials from counter-culturists, conscientious objectors, and artists who came of age during one of the most volatile decades in American history. Told in these revolutionaries' own energized words, these galvanizing rants are not polished, heady, or particularly well-crafted, but simply tell it like it was and therein lies their immediate, unadorned power. From Barry Melton's freewheeling tale of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll in Berkeley-based folk band Country Joe and the Fish, to Gloria Richardson Dandridge's charged retelling of her experiences as a pro-violence Civil Rights activist, to Bernard LaFayette's sobering account of his life-threatening work with Martin Luther King as a SNCC leader, these offerings are candid and eye-opening in the extreme. Of particular merit is the chapter called "Allison's Story," in which Allison Krause's mother and then-boyfriend compare notes about the days leading up to and immediately following the Kent State shooting in May 1970, when Allison and three of her classmates were killed by members of the National Guard. While Kisseloff's clumsy introductions to each entry may err on the side of campy, the testimonies themselves more than make up for it in substance and spirit. 40 photos.
