The 1960s Decade in Photos

* Reviews *

Characterizing a decade in one slim book involves making choices—Corrigan generally does quite well at selecting nineteen significant events or developments for each decade since 1900. Young history buffs get a look at politics, war, fashion, science, and technology in this Amazing Decades in Photos series; illustrated not only with photographs, some books make use of posters, cartoons, and newspaper pages as well. (The later decades are presented mainly in photographs.) In this book readers will encounter violence abroad from the Cold War to the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the ever-escalating Vietnam War. At home the new President, John F. Kennedy, averted nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. While the period was characterized by conflict over civil rights for African-Americans, readers learn about the rise of a rebellious hippie culture and growing protests against the War. On the positive side, Russians and Americans ventured into space, an American team landed on the moon, and the civil rights movement began to succeed. The arts are represented by two brilliant bands from Britain, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Americans were shocked by disturbing events: the assassinations of President Kennedy, then of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the Six-Day War in the Middle East, and the brutal crushing by the Soviets of the liberal Prague Spring in Europe. Looking forward from this fraught decade, Corrigan warns readers that the U.S. would suffer further blows to its prestige, entering a more sober time of self-doubt., Children's Literature