A thoughtful, almost elegiac, examination of liberalism's moral and
ideological collapse over ten famously tumultuous years, by
historian Burner (John F. Kennedy and a New Generation, 1988,
etc.). This is thematic, not narrative, history, by an academic
firmly situated not far left of center. Burner carefully delineates
what he considers the lamentable decline of the civil rights
movement of the early '60s into the black separatism of later
years; of the Beats' quest for the self-knowledge that comes from
new experiences into the mere self-indulgence of the
counterculture; and of a vocal sector of the peace movement into
admiration for leftist authoritarianism in Vietnam and elsewhere.
He locates the wellspring of liberalism's fall in its deference to
constituencies seen as historically oppressed, such as women,
blacks, and gays; he argues persuasively that this shift culminated
in a narrow politics of group identity at odds with liberalism's
historic task of democratically altering power relations for the
common good. Burner's focus on the rift between New Deal liberalism
and New Left radicalism has serious flaws: It leads him to
overestimate the power of ideology in shaping actions, while at the
same time smothering consideration of the ultimately more
influential conservatism that emerged from the '60s with
neoconservative intellectuals, most of them disillusioned liberals,
as its handmaidens. This political historian is, oddly, more acute
and original in his approaches to cultural than to political
currents; his analysis of the Beat writers is perceptive and
eloquent, while he has little to add to conventional liberal wisdom
on such subjects as Black Power and the Cold War. Still, the book
is lucid, and Burner's tone throughout is as measured and
reasonable as the creed whose redemption he seeks. This volume does
little to achieve the goal of its title, but it should be a
valuable contribution for those still trying to make sense of the
'60s. (Kirkus Reviews)
David Burner's panoramic history of the 1960s conveys the
ferocity of debate and the testing of visionary hopes that still
require us to make sense of the decade. He begins with the civil
rights and black power movements and then turns to nuanced
descriptions of Kennedy and the Cold War, the counterculture and
its antecedents in the Beat Generation, the student rebellion, the
poverty wars, and the liberals' war in Vietnam. As he considers
each topic, Burner advances a provocative argument about how
liberalism self-destructed in the 1960s. In his view, the civil
rights movement took a wrong turn as it gradually came to emphasize
the identity politics of race and ethnicity at the expense of the
vastly more important politics of class and distribution of wealth.
The expansion of the Vietnam War did force radicals to confront the
most terrible mistake of American liberalism, but that they also
turned against the social goals of the New Deal was destructive to
all concerned.
Liberals seemed to rule in politics and in the media, Burner
points out, yet they failed to make adequate use of their power to
advance the purposes that both liberalism and the left endorsed.
And forces for social amelioration splintered into pairs of
enemies, such as integrationists and black separatists, the social
left and mainline liberalism, and advocates of peace and supporters
of a totalitarian Hanoi.
"Making Peace with the 60s" will fascinate baby boomers and
their elders, who either joined, denounced, or tried to ignore the
counterculture. It will also inform a broad audience of younger
people about the famous political and literary figures of the time,
the salient moments, and, above all, the powerful ideas that
spawned events from the civil rights era to the Vietnam War.
Finally, it will help to explain why Americans failed to make full
use of the energies unleashed by one of the most remarkable decades
of our history.
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