Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s

by William L. O'Neill

Overview

William L. O'Neill's masterly chronicle of the twentieth century's most confounding decade is an immensely readable book that combines wit with learning and seriousness with entertainment. Its emphasis is inevitably on politics, but it offers a brilliant yet balanced portrayal of the New Left, the counterculture, the civil rights movement, the plunge into Vietnam, the crisis in the universities, and the freakier aspects of the popular culture. It has endured as one of the great interpretations of the sixties.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566636131
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	11/29/2004
Edition description:	New Introduction by Author
Pages:	488
Sales rank:	1,009,955
Product dimensions:	6.16(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.02(d)

About the Author

William L. O'Neill is professor of history at Rutgers University and author of A Democracy at War, Everyone Was Brave, American High, and other books in American history. He lives in Highland Park, New Jersey.

What People are Saying About This

David Halberstam

Marvelous, funny, and wise.

Studs Terkel

A witty and incisive chronicle of the Pirandello sixties. . . . Seldom have reality and fantasy been so intertwined.

Editorial Reviews

A witty and incisive chronicle of the Pirandello sixties.. .. Seldom have reality and fantasy been so intertwined.

Studs Terkel

A first-rate book that will last for a long time.

Nicholas von Hoffman

Marvelous, funny, and wise.

David Halberstam

Both readable and involving, presenting the political and cultural focus with a twist of wit and sympathetic insight rare to an interpretation of the times.

Midwest Book Review - James A. Cox

For those who like their history readable and authentic, this is their book. It does magnificently for the 1960s what Frederick Lewis Allen did for the 1920s.

Chicago Sun-Times

One of those rare books that starts out good and improves as it goes along. O'Neill has captured it all at just the right moment with just the right wit and intellect.

Cleveland Press

Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s is both readable and involving.

Bookwatch

For those who like their history readable and authentic, this is their book. It does magnificently for the 1960s what Frederick Lewis Allen did for the 1920s.

Chicago Sun-Times

Both readable and involving, presenting the political and cultural focus with a twist of wit and sympathetic insight rare to an interpretation of the times.
— James A. Cox

Midwest Book Review

"'Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s' is both readable and involving."
—May 2005

The Bookwatch