Audiobook18 hours
Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul
Written by Clara Bingham
Narrated by Jo Anna Perrin
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
As the 1960s drew to a close, the United States was coming apart at the seams. From August 1969 to August 1970, the nation witnessed nine thousand protests and eighty-four acts of arson or bombings at schools across the country. It was the year of the My Lai massacre investigation, the Cambodia invasion, Woodstock, and the Moratorium to End the War. The American death toll in Vietnam was approaching fifty thousand, and the ascendant counterculture was challenging nearly every aspect of American society. Witness to the Revolution, Clara Bingham's unique oral history of that tumultuous time, unveils anew that moment when America careened to the brink of a civil war at home, as it fought a long, futile war abroad.
Woven together from one hundred original interviews, Witness to the Revolution provides a firsthand narrative of that period of upheaval in the words of those closest to the action-the activists, organizers, radicals, and resisters who manned the barricades of what Students for a Democratic Society leader Tom Hayden called "the Great Refusal."
Woven together from one hundred original interviews, Witness to the Revolution provides a firsthand narrative of that period of upheaval in the words of those closest to the action-the activists, organizers, radicals, and resisters who manned the barricades of what Students for a Democratic Society leader Tom Hayden called "the Great Refusal."
Related to Witness to the Revolution
Related audiobooks
The Shattering: America in the 1960s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mayday 1971: A White House at War, a Revolt in the Streets, and the Untold History of America's Biggest Mass Arrest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Search of the Lost Chord: 1967 and the Hippie Idea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paranoid Style in American Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, Part II - 1963-64 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Taking Woodstock Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Twilight in Hazard: An Appalachian Reckoning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hubert Humphrey: The Conscience of the Country Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5100 Days: How Four Events in 1969 Shaped America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Charlie Brown's America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Messiahs: False Prophets of a Damned Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Woodstock Nation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWill You Miss Me When I'm Gone?: The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trial of the Chicago 7: The Official Transcript Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBorder Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Woodstock: Interviews and Recollections Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road to Woodstock Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Wars & Military For You
77 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kill Anything That Moves Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America's First Black Generals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diary of Anne Frank Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin - Book Summary: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead And Win Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Witness to the Revolution
Rating: 4.2368421052631575 out of 5 stars
4/5
19 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is a collection of first-person accounts of the period August 1969-August 1970. A range of voices are included - from draft resisters and activists to FBI agents - and it's remarkable how much occurred during this time frame - leak of the Pentagon Papers, the Kent State Shooting, Woodstock. I learned a lot from this book and I appreciated hearing the different perspectives on this momentous time. If you're interested in the history of the 1960s and 70s, this book is highly recommended.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Witness to the Revolution is a memoir of the "Awakened Generation". Seventy-seven different voices share their perspectives of pivotal events occurring in this culture-altering decade. Firsthand stories of Madison, Woodstock, Vietnam, the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, Kent State, the Altamont Free Concert, the Hard Hat Riot, and other events across the nation are told by an array of people including veterans, musicians, draft resisters, police officers, Black Panthers, FBI Agents, and family members of those lost in the chaos. More than a story of what happened, Witness is the story of what was felt, what was lost, and the bittersweet gains of this turbulent decade. Those who love music to accompany their reading might wish to flip to the back, page 559 in my edition, where a playlist of relevant music has been provided along with a watch list and and reading list for those who long for more information on the topic.I received a complimentary copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway. Many thanks to all involved in providing me with this opportunity.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is my favorite book (so far) of 2016!The author takes an in-depth look at the school year of August 1969 to August 1970 and addresses almost every milestone that happened in that time frame - and there were quite a few (draft resisting, the formation of the Weathermen, Nixon trying to take down any and all perceived threats to his power, the release of the Pentagon Papers, Kent State, Woodstock, breaking the My Lai massacre in the news, women's lib, the Black Panther Party, etc, etc). And she doesn't write it down like a textbook; instead, the major players who were willing to talk about what they saw, experienced, did, and thought tell the tales. The result is an incredibly engrossing read, and I am so sad that it is now over, although the author provides an extensive "further reading" category with well over a hundred books, and I want to read at least half of them.The 60s were such a fascinating time frame for me and how society changed so dramatically, and even though a lot of people seem to think that it was a bunch of hippies who smoked dope and listened to trippy music, there is so much that happened during this time frame that still affects us to this day. And the book doesn't shy away from the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Reading this book was an eye-opener for me, showing just how disconnected I feel from the political process. It is amazing to me to see so many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people who saw what they knew to be wrong and did what they could to change it. And now, today, we have such an amazing network available to us to organize (the internet), and we don't use it. It just blows my mind. And so many people think that Edward Snowden is an enemy. Also blows my mind. Listen to some of the songs from the era (Steppenwolf's "Monster" is a great place to start and is mentioned in this book) and they apply so, so much to modern day problems too.Highly recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Best: the sorting of 1969 - 1970 into useful categories such as The Draft, Moratorium, Townhouse, Culture Wars, Army Math. Second Best: descriptions of Vietnam War escalation from Nixon insidersThird Best: Commentary by the Armstrong Brothers, perpetrators of the Army Math bombing in Madison, WI Worst: Mark Rudd, David Harris, Bill Ayres, and Bernadine Dohrn humblebragging about their Weather escapades. Second Worst: not enough on women (nor enough of their voices, still silenced), Black Panthers, Young Lords, Jackson State killings Third Worst: too much Timothy Leary - who gives a shit - and not enough Abbie Hoffman and Jerry RubinThis is a good (if selective) recounting of (for some of us) our true glory days. Hardly to be believed by our children, hardly to be forgotten by us.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Witness to the Revolution is a powerful, compelling, intense, immersive, easy to read, hard to put down, brilliant book. I absolutely loved the author's unique approach in writing this. Rather than using interviews as research, then stringing together a chronological, impersonal narration, the author lets her interviewees tell the story in their own words. Clara Bingham puts these pieces together in order of events, as well as dividing them by specific topics (Woodstock, Weathermen, My Lai, etc.). We're shown all sides of the tumultuous era; from conservatives, to hippies and the drug culture, to hard-core activists. The result is a stunning and comprehensive account of one of the most divisive periods in American history. Time and distance allow us to reexamine past events, but even then we are often shown a skewed image, or perhaps a narrow and biased (unintentional or not) focus. Clara Bingham has given us the gift of an expansive view, so we all might see what the other side saw at the time, good, bad, or indifferent. In reading this, it's difficult not to be struck by just how close the US came to a full out revolution. I also found myself pondering our current state of general complacency. Some people say that eliminating the draft was not a good thing, because it allows us the freedom to disconnect from politics that aren't directly effecting us. Perhaps that's true. This book certainly gives us much to consider.I could go on and on about the attributes of this book. But, really, the most important thing I can tell you is to read it. *I received an advance copy from the publisher, via Amazon Vine, for my honest review.*