What you will find in this book are excerpts from the Port Huron Statement, conservative viewpoints on the anti-war movement, the platform for the Black Panther party, accounts of sit-ins during the civil rights struggle in the South, feminist statements and a million other things. It must have been difficult at times to put this book together, as deciding what to include (and what not to include) would be extremely difficult. Chances are whatever you're looking for is probably here in some form or another. Very helpful as a guide through this tumultuous time and essential for a student trying to get the feel for the times.

The book mostly consists of selections from the leftist and counter-culture movements of the 60s, though there is a token pro-Establishment section with items from the likes of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Due to my own personal interests, I would have appreciated seeing more selections from the nonviolent elements of the 60s movements-the pacifists, nonviolent anarchists, Gandhians, conscientious objectors, etc. Certainly the book does not neglect these elements entirely, but they are not as well represented as I might have liked.

Many things struck me in reading this book. I found the idealism--and what some would dismiss as naivete--of some of the early civil rights activists and of the Free Speech Movement leaders among others to be quite appealing. On the other hand, many of the selections serve as useful reminders that the factionalism, the bitter strident rhetoric, the simplistic ideologies, the in-fighting, the condemnation of anyone not accepted as a co-victim, etc. that I tend to think of as mostly insignificant excesses that arose late in the game after years of defeat and frustration were actually present all along.

What you won't find much of is the cynicism, apathy, smugness, defeatism, etc. of more recent times. Whatever is objectionable about some of the people you'll encounter in these selections, at least they had a sincerity about them, a desire to make their society and their world a better place, and a willingness to take action in accordance with their ideals. A few of them and their ideological descendants in the politically correct crowd have surely done more harm than good, but on the whole, they were on the right side of the vast majority of the issues they fought on, and even their quite limited successes have left us with slightly more freedom and justice, and slightly less war-tolerance than before they came along.