1969: The Year Everything Changed
- ISBN13: 9781602393660
- Condition: New
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An original look at a pivotal year in America—on its fortieth anniversary. For the fortieth anniversary of 1969, Rob Kirkpatrick takes a look back at a year when America witnessed many of the biggest landmark achievements, cataclysmic episodes, and generation-defining events in recent history. 1969 was the year that saw Apollo 11 land on the moon, the Cinderella stories of Joe Namath’s Jets
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(out of 10 reviews)
List Price: $ 24.95
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Review by T. Berner for 1969: The Year Everything Changed
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Mr. Kirkpatrick’s book suffers from what ails most “biographies of a year:” with rare exception, they don’t give you any sense of what it was like to live in that year; they only hit the headlines. The result is like observing a Seurat or other pointillist painting from an inch away: all you see are the dots of paint and you lose sight of the picture itself.
Still, Mr. Kirkpatrick does a great job of hitting the headlines and if you are interested in Hamburger Hill, Woodstock, the moon landing, Charlie Manson, Chappaquiddick, the Zodiac Killer, Altamont, the Amazin’ Mets or any of the other events of 1969, he does a thorough job of covering them, thus sparing the reader hundreds of hours of book reading for those anxious to familiarize themselves with these topics. The author’s politics are clear (there are few “conservatives” in the book, only “reactionaries”), but he is careful to present both sides of the political news. He also has a playful sense of history which is very engaging, so, for instance, he covers the inauguration of the Boeing 747 and the victory of the Jets in the Super Bowl in the same chapter called “Super Jets.”
1969 was an eventful year and although there are a lot of candidates for the title of “the year that changed everything,” Mr. Kirkpatrick manages to make a credible case for 1969.
Review by Sean Lahman for 1969: The Year Everything Changed
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Kirkpatrick is a gifted writer who takes all of the events of this remarkable year and shapes them into a single, cohesive story. In a span of just four weeks that summer, Americans witnessed Chappaquiddick, the moon landing, Woodstock, and the Manson murders. Kirkpatrick not only gives you a sense of the magnitude of these events in the moment they occurred, but of the profound and long lasting effects that they continue to have. Each of these moments is fascinating, but taken together, Kirkpatrick weaves an astonishing tale. Whether you lived through that tumultuous time or not, you’ll love immersing yourself into this book.
Review by peggy for 1969: The Year Everything Changed
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The book is divided into the four seasons. Like the events of that year–the albums, the movies, the protests–were more to do with forces of nature, powerful and inevitable. I like that. I think that’s how they loom in our collective American memory. At the same time, the book firmly roots you in the individual decisions and actions of those who shaped history, from the famous to the unknown. I’d heard about a lot of these events of course, but seeing them all here together, and their relationships to one another, I feel like I’m finally putting them into context.
Also intriguing is how knowing the story of 1969–and it is a story–deepens an understanding of our present triumphs and dilemmas. You can really see how a lot of the seeds were sown back then.
Review by Kayser for 1969: The Year Everything Changed
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The events that Kirkpatrick details in his book are pieces of all of our histories, but he manages to bring them all together and create a literary collage of how and why these events shaped our country in fascinating and though-provoking detail. Not only does Kirkpatrick chronicles the importance of political change, but he also talks about the Miracle Mets of that year and Woodstock and Altamont, which are compelling topics as it is but Kirkpatrick tackles them with such detail that you understand their contribution to our culture. I thoroughly enjoyed every chapter of this book!
Review by MT57 for 1969: The Year Everything Changed
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The book zips along and reads very easily. Events like the moon landing, Chappaquiddick and the Manson killings are imbued with the right amount of detail so that the events come back to life yet the book does not bog down. I found it much faster-moving than “1968″ (by a different author). That was one tedious book.
The subtitle “The Year Everything Changed” is an exaggeration. Many of the events in here are continuations of pre-1969 events or continued post-1969.
The book is exclusively America-centered. If it didn’t matter to Americans, it isn’t in here.
I would have liked a little more in the way of descriptions of what ordinary life was like – what things cost, what people made, what television programs were most watched, etc. I recognize that might be at odds with the goal of a fast paced book.