From assassinations to student riots, this is “a splendidly evocative account of a historic year—a year of tumult, of trauma, and of tragedy” (Arthur Schlesinger Jr.). In the United States, the 1960s were a period of unprecedented change and upheaval—but the year 1968 in particular stands out as a dramatic turning point. Americans witnessed the Tet offensive in Vietnam; the shocking assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy; and the chaos at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. At the same time, a young generation was questioning authority like never before—and popular culture, especially music, was being revolutionized. Largely based on unpublished interviews and documents—including in-depth conversations with Eugene McCarthy and Bob Dylan, among many others, and the late Theodore White’s archives, to which the author had sole access—1968 in America is a fascinating social history, and the definitive study of a year when nothing could be taken for granted. “Kaiser aims to convey not only what happened during the period but what it felt like at the time. Affecting touches bring back powerful memories, including strong accounts of the impact of the Tet offensive and of the frenzy aroused by Bobby Kennedy’s race for the presidency.” —The New York Times Book Review

The race for the White House in 1968 was a watershed event in American politics. In this brilliantly succinct narrative analysis, Lewis L. Gould shows how the events of that tumultuous year changed the way Americans felt about politics and their national leaders; how Republicans used the skills they brought to Richard Nixon's campaign to create a generation-long ascendancy in presidential politics; and how Democrats, divided and torn after 1968, emerged as only crippled challengers for the White House throughout most of the years until the early twenty-first century. Bitterness over racial issues and the Vietnam War that marked the 1968 election continued to shape national affairs and to rile American society for years afterward. And the election accelerated an erosion of confidence in American institutions that has not yet reached a conclusion. In his lucid account, now revised and updated, Mr. Gould emphasizes the importance of race as the campaign's key issue and examines the now infamous "October surprises" of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon as he describes the extraordinary events of what Eugene McCarthy later called the "Hard Year."

The first 50-year retrospective of the most tumultuous year the 1960s for activism and radical politics The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy. Gay rights, women's rights and civil rights. The Black Panthers and the Vietnam War. The New Left and the New Right. 1968 was a tumultuous year for US politics. 50 years on, Reframing 1968 explores the historical, political and social legacy of 1968 in modern protest movements. The contributors look at how protest has changed in the US, from Students for a Democratic Society and the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s, to the Women's Movement in the 1970s, through to the contemporary visibility of the Tea Party and the Occupy movement.

Allies at Odds examines America's Vietnam policy from 1961 to 1968 in an international context by focusing on the United States' relationship with its European partners France, West Germany, and Great Britain. The European response to America's Vietnam policy provides a framework to assess this important chapter in recent American history within the wider perspective of international relations. Equally significant, the respective approaches to the "Vietnam question" by the Europeans and Americans reveal the ongoing challenge for nation-states of transcending narrowly defined state-centered policies for a global perspective pursuant of common goals among the trans-Atlantic allies. Blang explores the failure of France, West Germany, and Great Britain to significantly influence American policy-making.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “In this highly opinionated and highly readable history, Kurlansky makes a case for why 1968 has lasting relevance in the United States and around the world.”—Dan Rather To some, 1968 was the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap; avant-garde theater; the upsurge of the women’s movement; and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. In this monumental book, Mark Kurlansky brings to teeming life the cultural and political history of that pivotal year, when television’s influence on global events first became apparent, and spontaneous uprisings occurred simultaneously around the world. Encompassing the diverse realms of youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media, 1968 shows how twelve volatile months transformed who we were as a people—and led us to where we are today.

In American Maelstrom, Michael A. Cohen captures the full drama of this watershed election, establishing 1968 as the hinge between the decline of political liberalism and the ascendancy of conservative populism and the anti-government attitudes that continue to dominate the nation's political discourse, taking us to the source of the politics of division.

1968 was an unprecedented year in terms of upheaval on numerous scales: political, military, economic, social, cultural. In the United States, perhaps no one was more undone by the events of 1968 than President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Kyle Longley leads his readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of what Johnson characterized as the 'year of a continuous nightmare'. Longley explores how LBJ perceived the most significant events of 1968, including the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy, and the violent Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His responses to the crises were sometimes effective but often tragic, and LBJ's refusal to seek re-election underscores his recognition of the challenges facing the country in 1968. As much a biography of a single year as it is of LBJ, LBJ's 1968 vividly captures the tumult that dominated the headlines on a local and global level.