Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today
by Tom Brokaw
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tom BrokawEdition: Paperback
Format: Large Print
Published: 2007-11-06
ISBN: 0739326821
Number of pages: 896
Publisher: Random House
Book Reviews of Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today
Book Review: WORTH THE READ BUT QUITE DISAPPOINTING.
Summary: 3 Stars
Boom! Voices of the Sixties by Tom Brokaw is a rather difficult work for me to assess as I have so many mixed emotions concerning this time of change in or country. First, just to let you know where I am coming from, I am extremely liberal in many of my views and extremely conservative on others. There is very little middle ground for me. I was a career military man and did indeed serve in the Viet Nam War. I, like many others have rather bitter memories of that time and place. I was and am not pleased with the government's decisions at that time, I was not pleased with that war, I was not pleased with the antiwar crowd and I was most certainly not pleased with the news media of that era. Now that being said:
There were parts of this book and its concept that I truly enjoyed and that I thought were quite well done. On the other hand there were aspects of this work that I thought were absolutely horrid. So, I suppose I should say what I liked and did not like.
LIKED: This was sort of a trip down memory lane for me, a nostalgic adventure. I was and am quite familiar with most of the individuals Brokaw interviewed for this work. Good grief, I grew up with them. I went into the military in 1962 and am quite familiar with the events of the time. I am a bit of a news nut, so I had followed most of these stories, personalities and events as they unfolded. I also feel that Brokaw is quite a good writer. His syntax is quite readable. Now I have a very, very low regard for the "talking heads," that try to control our information, both those who lean to the right and those who lean to the left. Brokaw is at the top of my complete distain list. But, the man can write! Like the other talking heads, he was not and is not a reporter, but rather a reader of the news. This does not tough, seemed to have influenced his ability to write well and tell a good story. I enjoyed the format that the author used in this book, which was a "then and now" shuffle of all the interviewees. This was interesting. I enjoyed reviewing events brought up concerning the civil rights movement, woman's movement and peace movement. I enjoyed the fact that the book was written with an extreme liberal bias evident. Good grief folks, if I want to read a conservative slant, I will pick a conservative writer. Asking Brokaw to be fare and balanced when it comes to evaluating ANYTHING is like asking Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter to come out pro gay marriages, pro abortion and pro Democrat. Both of these individuals are just as disgusting as Brokaw and his ilk, although I sometimes think Coulter is at least funny. I thought this work was well organized and I thought it was quite readable. The author did pick some very interesting individual to interview and include in his book. I was glad he was able to record their thoughts and views. I found this interesting, informative and useful.
DISLIKED: When I received this work I thought it was going to be another one like The Greatest Generation, which I felt was truly a unique and useful book...one of the better ones of this genre written over the past two decades. It was absolutely fascinating. Boy, was I wrong! Brokaw has, for the most part, interviewed only celebrities and want to be celebrities. In Greatest Generation, this author offered us a wonderful cross section of individuals. In this work we get only "big names" that the author seems to gloat over like they were his private collection of "famous and powerful people I have known, and look at me, am I not very, very important. He comes across as a big time name dropper. I feel the writer of this work missed a wonderful opportunity here. I also disagreed (this is a personal thing and perhaps many will not share my feelings with me) with many of the conclusions that Brokaw came to. We will not be able to evaluate the impact of the 1960s on our society for at least another fifty or more years. I did not like the almost manic effort the author put into this work trying to compare Iraq with Viet Nam. Hey Tom, different time, different circumstances, different war! I expected this book to give the liberal side of the story...I wanted it to, just like when I read a book by Limbaugh, I expect to get a conservative view point. But Brokaw probably went a bit across the line with this one...hey, he is suppose to be a reporter, even if not much of one.
This work is well worth the read and I am glad I have a copy. I would not suggest though, that anyone who desires to learn what the sixties were really about, use this work as the beginning and end of all works. Just read it, keep it in context and then read some other books on the same subject. I am giving this one three stars rather than four simply because I do not like Tom Brokaw. Tom states over and over again throughout the book how horrible it was that the country turned against the individual G.I. rather than just on the government. Tom, Tom, Tom, I may be well into my dotage now, but my memory is not all that bad. You, of all the talking heads were the worse one in that aspect. Your voice inflection, expressions on your face and the syntax you use in your reading the news was quite obvious to all of us. We have not forgotten.
Summary of Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today
In The Greatest Generation, his landmark bestseller, Tom Brokaw eloquently evoked for America what it meant to come of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War. Now, in Boom!, one of America’s premier journalists gives us an epic portrait of another defining era in America as he brings to life the tumultuous Sixties, a fault line in American history. The voices and stories of both famous people and ordinary citizens come together as Brokaw takes us on a memorable journey through a remarkable time, exploring how individual lives and the national mindset were affected by a controversial era and showing how the aftershocks of the Sixties continue to resound in our lives today. In the reflections of a generation, Brokaw also discovers lessons that might guide us in the years ahead.Boom! One minute it was Ike and the man in the grey flannel suit, and the next minute it was time to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” While Americans were walking on the moon, Americans were dying in Vietnam. Nothing was beyond question, and there were far fewer answers than before.
Published as the fortieth anniversary of 1968 approaches, Boom! gives us what Brokaw sees as a virtual reunion of some members of “the class of ’68,” offering wise and moving reflections and frank personal remembrances about people’s lives during a time of high ideals and profound social, political, and individual change. What were the gains, what were the losses? Who were the winners, who were the losers? As they look back decades later, what do members of the Sixties generation think really mattered in that tumultuous time, and what will have meaning going forward?
Race, war, politics, feminism, popular culture, and music are all explored here, and we learn from a wide range of people about their lives. Tom Brokaw explores how members of this generation have gone on to bring activism and a Sixties mindset into individual entrepreneurship today. We hear stories of how this formative decade has led to a recalibrated perspective–on business, the environment, politics, family, our national existence.
Remarkable in its insights, profoundly moving, wonderfully written and reported, this revealing portrait of a generation and of an era, and of the impact of the 1960s on our lives today, lets us be present at this reunion ourselves, and join in these frank conversations about America then, now, and tomorrow.
From the Hardcover edition.
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