Cassity & Levaren's "The '60s for Dummies"

I'm not a big fan of the "Idiot's Guide" of "Dummies" series of books. But I am a sucker for a history of the 60s, so I read Brian Cassity & Maxine Levaren's The '60s for Dummies.


It isn't a scholarly account. It has no new revelations or special interpretation. It is just a good solid review of that decade. It wasn't particularly "dumbed down" for a broader audience, but it did keep the trajectory of the history straightforward based on a theme approach. First a top-down view of decade in terms of presidents and their policies & actions. Then a series of sections dealing with major drivers of the decade: civil rights, Vietnam, social change, and cultural change.

On the whole I appreciated the book as a no-nonsense review of the history. Certainly a good starting point for anybody who didn't experience it. My favourite history is the 1971 book Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960's by William L. ONeill.