Results by title

Showing that the most important figures of the 1960s were not always the most famous ones

Just weeks back from Vietnam, guitarist Larry Lee stood on stage at Woodstock alongside Jimi Hendrix, but he isn’t given more than a glance in the festival’s documentary. In Selma, Alabama, in March 1965, an eight-year-old girl named Sheyann Webb wrote her own obituary before joining the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. She survived Bloody Sunday, swept off the bridge in the arms of Hosea Williams as state troopers on horseback swung bullwhips and clubs. These are just a couple of the regular people at the heart of Craig Werner’s sweeping, mosaic history of the 1960s; it is their stories, not those of the icons, that give the era its deeper meaning.

In Everyday People and the Stories of Freedom in the Sixties, Werner assembles a rich and kaleidoscopic portrait of a decade in which Americans across the entire political spectrum claimed freedom as their cause. Moving beyond familiar myths and simplified narratives, he reveals a period defined by three interlocking realities: everything was open to change, everything seemed to happen at once, and everyone believed their vision of freedom was the one worth fighting for.

Bringing together stories too often told in isolation—the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, the global Cold War, the women’s movement, and the intertwined worlds of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll—Werner integrates the experiences of African Americans, women, Native Americans, Latinx communities, LGBTQ people, and immigrants into a single, propulsive narrative. Music, film, art, and fashion are not treated as colorful backdrops but as central forces in the making of political and social change. This book illuminates the economic, political, technological, and cultural forces that shaped the 1960s and continue to influence the present. It is a history of a decade told not from the top down, but from the ground up, by the people who lived it.

Supplemental materials for readers, students, and instructors are available on the publisher’s website, including full citations, playlists, images, and thematic sections on the Global Sixties, science and technology, religion, literature, music, film, visual art, and major figures and events.

The history of Michigan is a fascinating story of breathtaking geography enriched by an abundant water supply, of bold fur traders and missionaries who developed settlements that grew into major cities, of ingenious entrepreneurs who established thriving industries, and of celebrated cultural icons like the Motown sound. It is also the story of the exploitation of Native Americans, racial discord that resulted in a devastating riot, and ongoing tensions between employers and unions. Michigan: A History of Explorers, Entrepreneurs, and Everyday People recounts this colorful past and the significant role the state has played in shaping the United States. Well-researched and engagingly written, the book spans from Michigan’s geologic formation to important 21st-century developments in a concise but detailed chronicle that will appeal to general readers, scholars, and students interested in Michigan’s past, present, and future.