Few eras in U.S. history have begun with more optimistic promise and ended in more pessimistic despair than the 1960s. Ten years later American power abroad seemed wasted in the jungles of Indochina, and critics at home cast doubt on whether the U.S. was really the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Few eras in U.S. history have begun with more optimistic promise and ended in more pessimistic despair than the 1960s. When JFK became president in 1960, the U.S. was the hope of the world. Ten years later American power abroad seemed wasted in the jungles of Indochina, and critics at home cast doubt on whether the U.S. was really the land of the free and the home of the brave. This book takes an encyclopedic look at the decade-at the individuals who shaped the era, the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the women's movement, and the youth rebellion. It covers the political, military, social, cultural, religious, economic, and diplomatic topics that made the 1960s a unique decade in U.S. history.