Reviews for Boom!: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today

The average rating for Boom!: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-02-18 00:00:00 Martez Gulley Boom! Voices of the Sixties was an incisive and balanced look back on the major events happening in the sixties. The majority of the book covers politics, Vietnam and civil rights. Also included, to a lesser extent are music, lifestyles, women's rights and space exploration. Brokaw has a nice flow to his writing which makes the book (despite its length) an easy read. The book is divided into sections by topic and then reflects on the prominent people of each. Several pages are devoted to the person with a highlight reel of their achievements and then quotes from recent interviews Brokaw had with each (the book was published in 2007) in which they provide their opinion on their own take-away from the 60s and how they feel it effects the US today. For those important figures in the 60s that are either no longer with us, or not available for interview, Brokaw looks at different sides of their legacies and provides his own reflections on their impact. While I enjoyed the book, I wish I would have paid more attention, beforehand, to the subtitle "Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today". Not having grown up in the sixties, I was hoping for more background information on the events of the decade and much more detail on events, public sentiment and major figures of the time. I also thought the "Voices of the Sixties" would refer to what was said then, rather than now. But alas, this is my own fault; the book truly is as the full title states and while not what I was expecting, was a compelling read all the same. As a side note, the book was written on the heels of the presidential election for 2008 and Obama and Clinton are briefly mentioned as front runners for the democratic nomination, along with the question of whether America was ready to vote Democrat again. And in the wake of our most recent election, it is certainly shocking and more evident than ever, what a difference a decade can make.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-11-29 00:00:00 Karthikeyan Ramanathan 2.5 stars rounded up. This is an interesting but not compelling book about the 1960s. Tom Brokaw interviews a number of famous and not so famous people about their experiences in the 1960s. It is Brokaw's premise that the decade of the 60s had an inordinate effect on the decades that followed. Sometimes I could see his point; other times his trying to show the lasting effects of a particular occurrence or trend was a real stretch. He discusses civil rights, politics, Vietnam, women's rights and popular music. In the first section, he discusses what happened; in the second section he discusses the repercussions and the third section, how it all is connected. Oddly, the last section has a chapter entitled "The View from the Moon", yet he barely covers the space race and how we freaking landed on the moon! Some sections and interviews are fascinating; others are mind numbing. After 300 pages, I found myself skimming a lot, then slowing down to read something that caught my interest. The book comes with a dvd which has excerpts from a TV special "1968 with Tom Brokaw". I haven't watched it yet, but I will. After watching Brokaw on TV for years, I could hear his voice narrating the book as I read it. There is also a lot about his own life in the book, and how he experienced the 60s. As he interviews people, you never quite know how he feels about what they are saying, if he agrees or disagrees, which is disappointing. I would have liked a little less objectivity and some more personalization in the book. I was just a kid in the 60s, and so reading parts of this book gave me a more adult perspective on what happened. The 60s were an extremely emotional decade, what with a series of assassinations, an unpopular war, political upheaval and a counter culture movement occurring in a short period of time, capped by a moon landing. This book is almost devoid of emotion which betrays the essence of the decade. It is a dry, intellectual evaluation of a time that was anything but. I learned some things, but overall, I found the book to be disappointing.