A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost

The 1960s were a study in contradiction: hope mixed with fear, peace disturbed by the agony of war. The previous decade was a time of a fragile peace in the US, a time for a war-weary country to prosper but also become complacent. The struggle for civil rights would burst forth more in the 1960s, with a more pronounced activism. Sit-ins and voter-registration drives sought to transform the South, where Jim Crow enabled the subjugation of African Americans. Martin Luther King and his acolytes marshaled their groups to challenge the old order, and the administration of John F. Kennedy determined to overhaul the civil rights of blacks in the south. Rock and roll music, in its infancy, served as a rebellion for the maturing baby boomer generation. However, for every step forward in our world’s growth, an assassination or bombing or war set the country back. The optimism of the 1960s would have a negative counterpart in paranoid skepticism about civil rights, peace movements, and progress. Overall, the 60s marked a time of revolutionary thought and progress that can never be marred.

A Hard Rain is an exhaustive overview of the turbulent 1960s. Each year brings forth a plethora of history, both good and bad. The author provides excellent narratives of macro and micro historical moments, which even he figured into as well. Compelling, endearing, and timeless. A historical marvel to be treasured.