When America turned: reckoning with 1968

Abstract

Much has been written about seismic shifts in American culture and politics during 1960s. Yet for all analysis of that turbulent era, its legacy remains unclear. In this elegantly written book, David Wyatt offers a fresh perspective on decade by focusing on pivotal year of 1968. He takes as his point of departure testimony delivered by returning veteran John Kerry before Senate Armed Services Committee in 1971, as he imagined a time in future when word Vietnam would mean the place where America finally turned. But turning from what, to what -- and for better or for worse?Wyatt explores these questions as he retraces decisive moments of 1968 -- Tet Offensive, McCarthy campaign, assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, student revolt at Columbia, police riot at Democratic Convention in Chicago, Lyndon Johnson's capitulation, and Richard Nixon's ascendency to power. Seeking to recover emotions surrounding these events as well as analyze their significance, Wyatt draws on insights of what Michael Herr has called straight and secret histories. The first category consists of work by professional historians, traditional journalists, public figures, and political operatives, while second includes writings of novelists, poets, New Journalists, and memoirists. The aim of this parallel approach is to uncover two kinds of truth: a scholarly truth grounded in documented past and an imaginative truth that occupies more ambiguous realm of meaning. Only by reckoning with both, Wyatt believes, can Americans come to understand true legacy of 1960s.