Few survivors of the Seventies would subscribe to the words of the
title. But for those with only painful memories, Carroll (The Free
and the Unfree, 1977) offers a silver-lining review of the decade's
developments, predicated on "the emergence of an alternative
consciousness." This counterculture romanticism doesn't prevent
Carroll from getting most things right - in the political arena or
as regards social movements. (His occasional soundings of popular
culture tend to be tritely tendentious.) But even so, there are
differences. On politics, Carroll supplies an interpretation, even
some analysis: "The very traits that had made [Carter] such an
attractive candidate in 1976 - images of compassion, homeyness,
innocence - contradicted popular expectations of presidential
authority. . . ." Nothing remarkable, but sound. Writing of social
movements, he regurgitates: "Younger workers, still hoping for a
meaningful future, resisted the demands of industrial life, sought
more than bread and butter from their jobs." Or: "The celebration
of the natural order assumed that Americans could transcend the
limits of industrial society, restore some primal attachment to the
order of nature." To read Carroll on these trends (also women's
"quest for identity," black "self-awareness," "the awakening
ethnicity," everyone's "longing for connections") is to relive the
decade verbatim. Where he does take a stand is in opposition to
Christopher Lasch and other critics of Seventies "narcissism" and
"selfishness." And then he writes woozily of "a quest not simply
for personal salvation, but more fundamentally for a sense of
cosmic connection." Carroll is a trustworthy
ear-to-the-groundswells and a generally reliable, quite effective
narrator of the main events (Watergate, the two presidential
elections). For virtually every happening, he has an apt quote and
a pertinent example. As recent past history, this has little to
impart today to anyone over 25 or 30 - but the young may take to
it, all the more on account of its outlook. (Kirkus Reviews)
"This is the single best book on the 1970s." --Leo Ribuffo, George
Washington University "A compelling and persuasive challenge to the
journalistic characterization of the '70s as the 'Me Decade.'"
--Ruth Rosen, University of California, Davis The title of Peter
Carroll's book, It Seemed Like Nothing Happened, ironically reveals
the message. The decade of the '70s was far from our common
impression of the calm following the turbulent '60s. Instead, it
was a time filled with dramatic events and changes. In this unique,
comprehensive history of the 1970s, we learn about international
developments: the war in Cambodia, Nixon's trip to China, the oil
embargo and resulting gas shortage, the Mayaguez incident, the Camp
David accords, the Iranian capture of the U.S. embassy and the
taking of hostages, and the ill-fated rescue mission. All this
signaled a decline in American power and influence. We also learn
about domestic politics: Kent State, the Pentagon Papers,
Haynsworth and Carswell, the Eagleton affair, the rise of ticket
splitting, the Saturday night massacre, Nixon's resignation, the
conservative shift in the Democratic Party, and the Reagan
electoral landslide. Carroll reminds us of tragedies and occasional
moments of levity, bringing up the names Patricia Hearst, George
Jackson and Angela Davis, Wilbur Mills and the Argentina
Firecracker, Wayne Hays and Elizabeth Ray, Harvey Milk and Mayor
George Moscone. Peter N. Carroll has taught at the University of
Illinois, the University of Minnesota, and Stanford University. He
is the author of The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade:
Americans in the Spanish Civil War.
General
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