1969: The Year Everything Changed

by Rob Kirkpatrick

Overview

FEATURING A NEW INTRODUCTION, THIS IS THE SEMINAL AND CLASSIC BOOK ON THE YEAR THAT DEFINED A GENERATION!
 
1969. The very mention of this year summons indelible memories. Woodstock and Altamont. Charles Manson and the Zodiac Killer. The televised events of the moon landing and Ted Kennedy’s address after Chappaquiddick. The Amazin’ Mets and Broadway Joe’s Jets. The Stonewall Riots and the Days of Rage. Americans pushed new boundaries on stage, screen, and the printed page. The first punk and metal albums hit the airwaves. Swinger culture became chic. The Santa Barbara oil slick and Cuyahoga River fire highlighted growing ecological devastation. The nationwide Moratorium and the breaking story of the My Lai massacre inspired impassioned debate on the Vietnam War. Richard Nixon spoke of “The Silent Majority” while John and Yoko urged us to “Give Peace a Chance.” In this rich and comprehensive narrative, Rob Kirkpatrick chronicles an unparalleled year in American society in all its explosive ups and downs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510743144
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	05/07/2019
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
Sales rank:	800,602
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

ROB KIRKPATRICK has worked in the book publishing industry for two decades and is the author of books on Bruce Springsteen and Cecil Travis. He and his family live in the Hudson Valley.
Rob Kirkpatrick is a literary agent, editor, and author. He is the author of Magic in the Night: The Words and Music of Bruce Springsteen and Cecil Travis of the Washington Senators, and the editor of The Quotable Sixties. His creative writing has been published by Aethlon and Slow Trains. He has published the books of many well-known authors.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments iii

Select Timeline vi

Introduction to the 2019 Edition xii

Prologue: Revolution, Apocalypse, and the Birth of Modern America xx

I Winter's Children 1

1 Nixon's Coming 2

2 Something in the Air 11

3 The New Sounds 23

4 Super Jets 39

5 The American Family 48

II Revolution in Springtime 65

6 American Undressed 66

7 A Whole New Ball Game 88

8 Poison Ivy 100

9 1, 2, 3, What Are We Fighting For? 115

10 The Green Mind 123

11 Stand! 135

III The Summer of Impossible Dreams 145

12 Walking in Space 146

13 The Mists of Camelot 168

14 Shaking the Cage 180

15 West Coast Killers 194

16 An Amazin' Summer 212

17 Heaven in a Disaster Area 223

IV Autumn Apocalypse 255

18 "There Are No Words" 256

19 Nixon's War 268

20 Days of Rage 283

21 Cowboys and Indians 303

22 The Hippie Apocalypse 326

Epilogue: Future Shock-The Seventies and Beyond 350

Bibliography 359

Notes 368

Index 384

Editorial Reviews

In this compelling and freewheeling account, Kirkpatrick (The Words and Music of Bruce Springsteen) treats the tumultuous events of 1969 with the skills of a journalist, a historian, a sociologist, and a sportswriter and manages to insert moments of lightness and triviality into his grand tour. He writes as easily about jazz-pop as about the rise of the American Indian Movement. He follows a harrowing chapter about the Manson family and the Zodiac Killer with a breathless report on the Amazin' Mets. Later, he describes the surreal convergence of Game 4 of the World Series with the National Moratorium Day against the Vietnam War. In Kirkpatrick's account, Joe Namath receives more attention than Spiro Agnew. This is not a definitive, scholarly study of the year's events, but it serves well as a primer on the condition of American life at the end of the 1960s. In addition to over 500 endnotes, Kirkpatrick provides a handy time line of the year's significant events. Nostalgic for some, revelatory for others, this is a worthy addition to the literature of the 1960s.
—Thomas A. Karel

Library Journal

"The year, and a book, that defined an era…The subtitle of his new book, 1969: The Year Everything Changed, may sound hyperbolic, but Kirkpatrick makes a good case that it was a year ‘of landmark achievements, cataclysmic episodes and generation-defining events.'"-USA Today

"The year, and a book, that defined an era…The subtitle of his new book, 1969: The Year Everything Changed, may sound hyperbolic, but Kirkpatrick makes a good case that it was a year ‘of landmark achievements, cataclysmic episodes and generation-defining events.'"-USA Today

From the Publisher

A compelling account of the historic year.

History Channel Magazine

Kalb asks the kind of common-sense questions you think of from time to time that never get much of an airing…The thing I like about Elliott is that we disagree more than we agree on the sports scene, but I learn something from him every time we talk. Good reason to check his book out.

Peter King - Sports Illustrated