The Times They Were a-Changin'
1964, the Year the Sixties Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn
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Narrated by:
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David de Vries
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Written by:
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Robert S. McElvaine
About this listen
An award-winning historian on the transformative year in the sixties that continues to reverberate in our lives and politics—for fans of Heather Cox Richardson.
If 1968 marked a turning point in a pivotal decade, 1964—or rather, the long 1964, from JFK’s assassination in November 1963 to mid-1965—was the time when the sixties truly arrived. It was then that the United States began a radical shift toward a much more inclusive definition of “American,” with a greater degree of equality and a government actively involved in social and economic improvement.
It was a radical shift accompanied by a cultural revolution. The same month Bob Dylan released his iconic ballad “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced his War on Poverty. Spurred by the civil rights movement and a generation pushing for change, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act were passed during this period. This was a time of competing definitions of freedom. Freedom from racism, freedom from poverty. White youth sought freedoms they associated with black culture, captured imperfectly in the phrase “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.” Along with freedom from racist oppression, black Americans sought the opportunities associated with the white middle class: “white freedom.” Women challenged rigid gender roles. And in response to these freedoms, the changing mores, and youth culture, the contrary impulse found political expression in such figures as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, proponents of what was presented as freedom from government interference. Meanwhile, a nonevent in the Tonkin Gulf would accelerate the nation's plunge into the Vietnam tragedy.
In narrating 1964’s moment of reckoning, when American identity began to be reimagined, McElvaine ties those past battles to their legacy today. Throughout, he captures the changing consciousness of the period through its vibrant music, film, literature, and personalities.
©2022 Robert S. McElvaine (P)2022 Skyhorse PublishingCritic Reviews
“Illuminating, provocative, and entertaining . . . The book shines when serving as a reminder of why the public remains infatuated with the decade. The 1960s, McElvaine explains, ‘still define the political, social, cultural, and economic battle lines along which Americans contend today.’”—Washington Post
“The Times They Were a-Changin’ is a riveting book on the progressive advances that were achieved in 'the Long 1964.' McElvaine presents vivid details and unapologetic truths that can help to thwart rightwing radicals’ plans to annihilate the progress we have made toward equality. This eye-opening book makes clear the reasons society must study past mistakes to prevent them from reoccurring.”—Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman, House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on U.S. Capitol
"In a lively, lucid, and fast-paced narrative, Robert McElvaine summons the past to illuminate today’s existential threats to democracy—and the resources that might help us surmount them. In the hands of this gifted storyteller, 1964 becomes a prism through which to see the present with fresh eyes, just in time to save the future."—Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America