On the Cusp: The Yale College Class of 1960 and a World on the Verge of Change by Daniel Horowitz

Abstract

Reviewed by: On the Cusp: The Yale College Class of 1960 and a World on the Verge of Change by Daniel Horowitz Daniel Clark On the Cusp: The Yale College Class of 1960 and a World on the Verge of Change by Daniel Horowitz. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015. xxi + 310 pp. Paper $24.95. As a historian with an interest in the history of masculinity and higher education, I came to Daniel Horowitz's On the Cusp with a natural fascination with Yale, both as a preeminent institution and as a special seat in the formation of an ideal manhood that influenced the nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The continued impact of the ideal "Yale Man" figures prominently in Horowitz's memory as well, if more as a model to rebel against. Horowitz seeks to find some insight into how family, education, and the Yale experience factored into the development of a class sitting in between the staid conformity of the 1950s and the rebellion of the 1960s. Many might first cast a skeptical eye toward yet another retrospective on this generation, and certainly Horowitz's interest centers on trying to understand where the activism and commitment to 1960's style change came from—seemingly more of this generation's self-infatuation. Nevertheless, this is not another study of how great (or horrible) baby boomer movers and shakers were. The book clearly grew out of the Yale class of 1960's fiftieth reunion, its class reunion book, and Horowitz's own self-reflection. While the class produced some incredible leaders (Yale president and Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti, Senator Jack Heinz, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, CIA Director Porter Goss, and several CEOs), what captures Horowitz's imagination is how the traditional, hypermasculine world of Yale nurtured the future liberal scholars and activists of the 1960s (and beyond)—how could Yale have birthed champions of the civil rights movement, modern feminism, and partisans of the liberal culture wars? Horowitz expected to find a "seamless connection between the rebellious stirrings" he felt in the 1950s and what happened in ensuing decades. Instead he found only subtle indicators (253). The book weaves together the style of emotional memoir, oral and intellectual history, and social [End Page 441] analysis all in an attempt to identify how this class was truly transitional, with some reflecting a dawning social consciousness. The first two chapters, "Think Yiddish" and "Dress British," cleverly introduce the reader both to Horowitz's personal tale and to the traditional world of Yale in the 1950s. He details the social aspects of the manly Yale world with the above-ground senior societies like Skull and Bones, the fraternities and a cappella groups (like the Whiffinpoofs), and the necessity of wearing the preppy style—a fun if not highly surprising read, all relayed through the eyes of Horowitz's "outsider" Jewish status. The next five chapters, then, explore what for Horowitz form the markers of how at least some of the class of '60 evidenced their "awakening"—an increasing racial consciousness, greater devotion to academics, alternative notions of masculinity in contrast to Yale tradition (more academic and sensitive to women), and a greater political engagement on social issues. His involvement with a year-long series of speakers and discussions called "Challenge" in his senior year sits as the culminating proof of all this increased consciousness raising and academic questioning. Challenge pulled in an impressive array of speakers from Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley, and Senator Barry Goldwater on the right, to Senator Hubert Humphrey, A. Philip Randolph, and several folk singers on the left, discussing such topics as nuclear arms (in the fall semester) and the "challenges of democracy"—racism, labor problems, and socialism—in the spring. This did not seem like Dink Stover's Yale and did foreshadow a dawning political awareness. For people already acquainted with Yale's history and traditions, the book offers little that is new. Most of the chapters center on the author's own experience, although the generous dose of classmates' stories and life experiences proves illuminating. Personally I found the author's forays into intellectual history (professor's classes...