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Summary
Summary
1968, THE YEAR AMERICA GREW UP
From racial and gender equality fights to the struggle against the draft and the Vietnam war, in 1968 Americans asked questions and fought for their rights. Now, 30 years later, we look back on that seminal year--from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assasination to the Columbia University riots to our changing role among other nations--in this gripping introduction to the events home and abroad. The year we first took steps in space, the year we shaped the present, 1968 presented by a former New York Times writer who lived through it all, shares the story with detail and passion.
Author Notes
MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN spent more than 40 years at The New York Times , from copyboy to foreign correspondent and deputy foreign editor. He is the author of nine books including ROOFTOPS AND ALLEYS, a children's book about a ten-year-old New Yorker. He lives in Manhattan.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-In the history of any culture, or indeed of the world, there are arguably years that are of greater significance than others. The events of 1939 and 2001 come to mind, and the argument of this book is that 1968 was likewise a watershed year with people rising across the globe to assert their own power and voice. Divided into 10 sections, the fluid prose treats topics such as the Tet Offensive; tensions on the U.S. home front engendered by the Vietnam War; the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy; the student uprisings in Paris and at Columbia University; the Prague Spring; demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; the summer Olympics in Mexico City; and the Apollo 8 Mission, which, on December 26, 1968, beamed back the first pictures of Earth as seen from space. Arranged chronologically, the narrative puts these events and others into their proper sequence and notes how they echoed and influenced one another. Numerous excellent-quality black-and-white photos augment the text, and each section begins with a facsimile of the front page of the New York Times, showing how each event was reported. The full text of each article is appended, along with source notes and an excellent index. Read cover to cover, 1968 serves not just to explain but also to clarify the meaning of events. Students will be well served by this extensively documented treatment.-Ann Welton, Helen B. Stafford Elementary, Tacoma, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Former New York Times reporter Kaufman reflects on the lead stories that made 1968 "a year like no other." Beginning chronologically with the January Tet Offensive and ending with the December Apollo 8 space mission, he portrays a year "in which the flow of bad news never slackened," a year that triggered "many trends and events that came later." The narrative addresses the increasing "political divisions and cultural clashes" that distinguished '68, including President Johnson's declining popularity over the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the anti-establishment student protests at Columbia University and the police brutality at the Chicago Democratic National Convention. It also examines global unrest from student protests in Paris and Mexico City to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Opening with double-page reproductions of the key Times cover article, chapters include profiles of prominent people and dramatic black-and-white photos of featured events. Written with personal insight and historical perspective, this proves a concise, astute, balanced and often moving introduction to a "truly unforgettable year" (chronological timeline, text of Times articles, source notes, index, further reading) (Nonfiction. 12 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Kaufman, whose reporting career at The New York Times spans four decades, expertly draws young readers into the worldwide events of a single, watershed year: 1968. In this illuminating New York Times Book, each chapter focuses on a different hot spot around the globe, beginning with the Tet Offensive and the Vietnam War and moving through uprisings in New York, Paris, Prague, Chicago, and Mexico City, as well as the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Reproductions of corresponding front-page articles from The New York Times open each chapter, while the full text of the articles appears in an appended section. The images, drawn from the Times archives, are riveting and will easily draw young people into the fascinating, often horrifying events of that year like no other. An expanded introductory time line will help readers place the events in larger historical and cultural context. In a time in which newspapers seem to be losing ground among young people to online sources and The Daily Show, this insightful, clear-eyed, moving overview serves as a reminder of the fundamental importance of journalism to gather accurate facts into the stories that become history. An essential volume for teens' understanding of the time period.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2008 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
WHENEVER I read references to 1929, I almost always think of the stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed. Likewise, mentions of 1941 reliably evoke images of the Japanese bombardment of Pearl Harbor and the United States's entry into World War II. The year 1968, while every bit as notable, doesn't conjure one image but a cascade, many of them violent - the student uprisings in Paris, in the United States and in Mexico City, where the army opened fire on protesters. Both the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, running for president, were assassinated that year. Demonstra- tions against the Vietnam War at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago culminated in a policeprotester street brawl. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive claimed the lives of tens of thousands of combatants and civilians and spelled a turning point in the war. And in Europe, Soviet tanks quashed efforts by Czechoslovakians to give socialism "a human face." In his succinctly titled "1968," Michael T. Kaufman draws on New York Times archives, his personal experience as a young Times staffer, a wealth of historic news photographs and other sources to replay these often bloody highlights from that pivotal year. Older readers who lived through 1968 will profit from Kaufman's account, as will younger ones who can't remember who came first, President Johnson or President Nixon. Kaufman adds just the right personal touchés to his history lesson. He covered the student strike at Columbia University, where he saw teachers and students beaten by police, with some of the young women being pulled by their hair. He was in Harlem after the King assassination, waiting to report on a riot that never came. He was laboring on the newspaper's night rewrite desk in the early morning hours of June 5, when a Times California correspondent phoned in the news that Bobby Kennedy, who had just won the state's presidential primary, had been shot. As Kaufman puts it, the world seems to have "spun faster" in 1968 than in neighboring years. Authority everywhere was under furious attack. The civil rights movement was fracturing between nonviolent and violent strategies. The North Vietnamese refused to bow to the United States, and the French government fell following a general strike and huge student demonstrations in Paris. After a brief introduction, "1968" unpacks in chronological order. Each chapter begins with a slightly magnified Page 1 image from The Times that's relevant to its subject, giving the book the urgency and grittiness of a newsreel. At the book's end, Kaufman continues the journalistic history lesson by reprinting the big stories from those Page 1s. Contemporary readers will spot a few jarring details. For example, Times editors in 1968 thought it necessary to identify the professional football player Roosevelt Grier by race in its coverage of the Kennedy assassination. But for the most part, these breaking news stories, written on tight deadline by Times legends like Tad Szulc and J. Anthony Lukas, provide an excellent "first rough draft" of history. Writers tend to romanticize their own experiences, especially their early, formative ones. But as one who turned 17 that year and has since become a student of the period, I find Kaufman a faithful historian and reliable witness. He ends his book with a brief, upbeat chapter about Apollo 8, whose December mission was to pave a path for a future lunar landing. It was a mission filled with "firsts." Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to escape Earth's gravitational field, the first to orbit the moon, and the first to send back images of the entire Earth from space. During the six days that Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr. and William A. Anders were gone, not much changed on Earth. The Vietnam War rumbled on Czechoslovakia was still in the Soviets' cage. Racial equality seemed as distant as ever. But it was hard to look skyward that week and not admire Apollo 8's three-man crew and think of what their accomplishment said about human potential. As Kaufman puts it, the "terrible and shocking time" that was 1968 set in motion much of the good and the bad that endure today, which helps explain why a year that is four decades distant still seems so close. Jack Shafer writes about the press for Slate.