Witness to the Revolution

“In her excellent oral history of the tumultuous events of 1969 and 1970, . . . [Clara Bingham] does a fine job conjuring the sense of a looming apocalypse. . . . It’s surprising to be reminded how many of the decade’s signature events occurred in a single year. Woodstock. The trial of the Chicago Eight. The My Lai massacre. The first efforts to publish the ‘Pentagon Papers.’ Altamont. The rise of the Weather Underground. The invasion of Cambodia. Kent State. The bombing of the Army Math Research Center in Madison, Wis. Witness to the Revolution offers an impressive list of actual witnesses to these events and more, including some sharp contextual asides explaining the rise of the antiwar movement and the fallout from its messy end. . . . Especially for younger generations who didn’t live through it, Witness to the Revolution is a valuable and entertaining primer on a moment in American history the likes of which we may never see again.”—Bryan Burrough, The Wall Street Journal
 
“A rich tapestry of a volatile period in American history.”—Time

“A gripping oral history of the centrifugal social forces tearing America apart at the end of the ’60s . . . This is rousing reportage from the front lines of US history.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
 
“[An] Enthralling and brilliant chronology of the period between August 1969 and September 1970.”—Buffalo News
 
“The familiar voices and the unfamiliar ones are woven together with documents to make this a surprisingly powerful and moving book.”—New York Times Book Review
 
“[Bingham] captures the essence of these fourteen months through the words of movement organizers, vets, students, draft resisters, journalists, musicians, government agents, writers, and others. . . . This oral history will enable readers to see that era in a new light and with fresh sympathy for the motivations of those involved. While Bingham’s is one of many retrospective looks at that period, it is one of the most immediate and personal.”—Booklist
 
“An engrossing oral history of the youth rebellion of the 1960s . . . [A] remarkable account of the anti-war movement . . . There are revealing stories about Weathermen on the lam, government sabotage and surveillance, courtroom theatrics, police riots, President Richard Nixon’s late-night meeting with protesters at the Lincoln Memorial, the Pentagon Papers, and the incessant organizing behind events that ‘would profoundly and permanently change the nation.’ The cast is a who’s who of the ’60s: Daniel Ellsberg, Jane Fonda, Julius Lester, and others, from undercover FBI agents to rock musicians, most of whom offer sharp insights into the period. . . . People like Bingham (b. 1963), who ‘missed the party,’ may be astonished by aspects of this tumultuous story. Baby boomers will find themselves infuriated once again by vivid accounts of the My Lai massacre, the Kent State and Jackson State shootings, and other tumultuous events.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Witness to the Revolution is vivid, compelling, and addictively readable. Clara Bingham has captured the lightning of the 1960s in a jar, where it blows the reader’s socks off. Whether you lived through this period or want to know what you missed, this is a popular history everyone should read.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money

“For those who ‘missed the sixties’ (like most of us, whether demographically or spiritually), this vital book goes a long way toward explaining the original wound that festers in our ‘culture wars’ still. Witness to the Revolution is to the counterculture what Howell Raines’s My Soul Is Rested is to the civil rights movement, a pageant of humanness that induces throat-clogging wonder at then and now.”—Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Carry Me Home

“At once reliving and reflecting on the end of the 1960s, the voices in Witness to the Revolution provide a compelling history and an authentic testimony of a turbulent time. As we live through a new moment of political turmoil, it’s critical that we revisit an era when arguments over politics and culture were palpable, urgent, and revolutionary. Clara Bingham takes us there.”—Gay Talese, author of A Writer’s Life
 
“The cities and campuses were blowing up, the races and generations were at war, sex, drugs, and violence gripped our young. How the hell did that happen? Clara Bingham, a gifted reporter with a great sense of story, tells us in this moving, funny, horrifying, clarifying book. This is the best sixties book since Edie.”—Evan Thomas, author of Being Nixon
 
“In her compelling and dramatic oral history of that fleeting moment when America seemed to be a nation on the brink, Clara Bingham directs the choir of Woodstock Nation—an artfully composed collection of voices of those who went ‘up the country’ or on a ‘long strange trip,’ those sent off to Southeast Asia and others who stayed home and were driven mad by the Vietnam War. Singing a song of would-be revolution, this collection of antiwar veterans, Black Panthers, radicals, rock stars, and others who let their freak flags fly, not to mention a few Nixon intimates and fellow travelers, defies the notion that if you remember it, you weren’t there. Vivid, vibrant, and crackling with energy, Witness to the Revolution takes you to the exact spot where the wave of the sixties, the Movement, and the Age of Aquarius crested. You can almost smell the tear gas.”—Nick Turse, author of Kill Anything That Moves
 
“Witness to the Revolution is a remarkable oral history, deftly weaving together vivid characters, traumatic events, and fractious movements. As we stand again as witnesses to a vertiginous period of change and challenge, Bingham’s book is powerfully relevant. Above all, it is a vibrant and critical guide to a time that changed our nation forever.”—Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation