"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Friday, May 31, 2013

The Eve of Destruction - How 1965 Transformed America (James T. Patterson, 2012)

Good enough - but I didn't get much new out of this.  Already pretty familiar with much of the information presented.  Very few dog-eared pages, which is not a good sign.  Very quick read.

One basic item the author clarified was that when we think of the '60s as an era of turmoil, protest, etc. - all this really started in 1965.  Pretty tame prior.

When I think back - it was a rather crazy time to be growing up - I turned nine in 1965.

Euphoria over passage of civil rights legislation and the war on poverty - with prompt onset of disillusionment.  (Not that this has broken the cycle of trying to slough off our issues to over-promising popularity contest winners, a/k/a politicians.)


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