1968: The Year that Rocked the World

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Vintage, 2005 - History - 441 pages
'A fascinating account...combining the rigour of the historian with the powerful emotions of someone who was a twenty-year-old student at the time' Uncut

It was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll. But what impact did it have on today's political and social landscape?


It was also the year of the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Prague Spring, the Chicago convention, the Tet offensive in Vietnam and the anti-war movement, the student rebellion that paralysed France, civil rights, the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, and the birth of the women's movement.

With 1968- The Year that Rocked the World, award-winning journalist Mark Kurlansky has written his magnum opus - a cultural and political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval, when television's impact on global events first became apparent, and when simultaneously - in Paris, Prague, London, Berkeley, and all over the globe - uprisings spontaneously occurred. 1968 encompasses the worlds of youth and music, politics, war, economics, assassinations, riots, demonstrations and the media, and shows us how we got to where we are today.

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About the author (2005)

Mark Kurlansky is the author of The Basque History of the World, the New York Times bestseller Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (among the New York Public Library's Best Books of the Year in 1998), as well as A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry; A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny, and several acclaimed works of short fiction and journalism about the Caribbean. He spent seven years as the Caribbean correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He lives in New York City.

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