Boyle's book is a great narrative history, combining well-known figures and lesser known ordinary people. Its prose is simply great; this is the type of history that needs to be written to appeal to wider, popular audiences. There is a depth of exploration without being too esoteric, as well.

I commend Boyle for challenging the typical historiography of the "long 1960s"- he hints on a point that I think is critical, and yet overlooked. By positing 1968 as the bookend of the 1960s, the decade takes on a new interpretation. Historians have grown to see Nixon's resignation as the end of a long struggle, but what if his presidency is more symbolic and the consequence of the fracturing that had already been set up earlier? I think Boyle is on to something important here, and historians should take note. Nixon is an embodiment of the disillusion of the 1970s, an outgrowth of the arguments of the 1960s, that culminate in his election in 1968. Boyle treats that year as it should be.

Furthermore, while he does leave some important stories out (women, natives) we see how particular themes shape the 1960s. Politics, and foreign policy in particular, is based around the Vietnam War. Nixon tries to change this during his administration. Race relations also change beginning in 1968. Is it any coincidence that the heroic civil rights movement is typically seen as finished with MLK's assassination? There is again a shift.

Boyle navigates what happens from the late 1950s through 1968 in a very readable way, but one that paints a broad picture of a society trying to grapple with a lot of change and questions about identity, whether that be racial or about America's identity in a global sense. Readers who want to try and make sense of what might be termed the "short 1960s" should start here