1960s - Paperback

by Brian Ward (Editor)

Drawn from a wide range of perspectives and showcasing a variety of primary source materials, Brian Ward's The 1960s: A Documentary Reader highlights the most important themes of the era.

• Supplies students with over 50 primary documents on the turbulent period of the 1960s in the United States
• Includes speeches, court decisions, acts of Congress, secret memos, song lyrics, cartoons, photographs, news reports, advertisements, and first-hand testimony
• A comprehensive introduction, document headnotes, and questions at the end of each chapter are designed to encourage students to engage with the material critically

Back Jacket

Drawn from a wide range of perspectives and showcasing a variety of primary source materials, Brian Ward's The 1960s: A Documentary Reader includes over 50 primary documents and highlights the most important themes of the era. Cumulatively, the speeches, court decisions, acts of Congress, secret memos, song lyrics, cartoons, photographs, news reports, advertisements, and first-hand testimony collected in this reader take students from the New Left to the New Right, from Vietnam to Woodstock, from suburbia to the moon, and from evangelicals to environmentalists.

With headnotes that place each text into historical context and an introduction that examines the difficulties historians face when confronted with an abundance of diverse, often contradictory, evidence, The 1960s offers students a sophisticated introduction to this most beguiling yet elusive of decades.

Author Biography

Brian Ward is Professor of American Studies at the University of Manchester. His major publications include the award winning books Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations (1998) and Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South (2004). He is currently working on a book about the relationship between the American South and the world of British popular music.