American Culture in the 1960s

A clear overview of the major cultural forms of 1960s America -- fiction and poetry; music and performance; film and television; art and photography -- and influential texts of the decade.

This book charts the changing complexion of American culture in one of the most culturally vibrant of twentieth-century decades. It provides a vivid account of the major cultural forms of 1960s America - music and performance; film and television; fiction and poetry; art and photography - as well as influential texts, trends and figures of the decade: from Norman Mailer to Susan Sontag; from Muhammad Ali''s anti-war protests to Tom Lehrer''s stand-up comedy; from Bob Dylan to Rachel Carson; and from Pop Art to photojournalism. A chapter on new social movements demonstrates that a current of conservatism runs through even the most revolutionary movements of the 1960s and the book as a whole looks to the West and especially to the South in the making of the sixties as myth and as history.