Customer Reviews: Read 86 more reviews...
 Very Informative Book August 17, 2008
Since I was 15 in 1968 I came in on the very end of the Sixties. I learned that there was a whole lot more going on than I had realized. If you have a yearning to know what it was like, then do yourself a favor and read this. I found it very easy to read. You will be introduced to names you may have heard, but had no idea what their contribution to life was.
 Part Boom...Part Bust August 11, 2008
The Table of Contents reads like a "Who's Who" of liberal thinking. Then again, the subtitle does say "Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today", so the fact that it shows Brokaw's personal liberal bias should come as no surprise.
Some of the stories were interesting, and some I just skipped over. But the format was good, and his style is easy to read. I grew up in the 60s, and it fascinates me how people can remember the same event so differently.
For me the best part was the "then and now" photos. (old photos of Dick Cheney on page 378) It's worth reading.
WORTH THE READ BUT QUITE DISAPPOINTING. June 21, 2008
10 out of 18 found this review helpful
Boom! Voices of the Sixties by Tom Brokaw is a rather difficult work for me to assess as I have so many mixed emotions concerning this time of change in or country. First, just to let you know where I am coming from, I am extremely liberal in many of my views and extremely conservative on others. There is very little middle ground for me. I was a career military man and did indeed serve in the Viet Nam War. I, like many others have rather bitter memories of that time and place. I was and am not pleased with the government's decisions at that time, I was not pleased with that war, I was not pleased with the antiwar crowd and I was most certainly not pleased with the news media of that era. Now that being said:
There were parts of this book and its concept that I truly enjoyed and that I thought were quite well done. On the other hand there were aspects of this work that I thought were absolutely horrid. So, I suppose I should say what I liked and did not like.
LIKED: This was sort of a trip down memory lane for me, a nostalgic adventure. I was and am quite familiar with most of the individuals Brokaw interviewed for this work. Good grief, I grew up with them. I went into the military in 1962 and am quite familiar with the events of the time. I am a bit of a news nut, so I had followed most of these stories, personalities and events as they unfolded. I also feel that Brokaw is quite a good writer. His syntax is quite readable. Now I have a very, very low regard for the "talking heads," that try to control our information, both those who lean to the right and those who lean to the left. Brokaw is at the top of my complete distain list. But, the man can write! Like the other talking heads, he was not and is not a reporter, but rather a reader of the news. This does not tough, seemed to have influenced his ability to write well and tell a good story. I enjoyed the format that the author used in this book, which was a "then and now" shuffle of all the interviewees. This was interesting. I enjoyed reviewing events brought up concerning the civil rights movement, woman's movement and peace movement. I enjoyed the fact that the book was written with an extreme liberal bias evident. Good grief folks, if I want to read a conservative slant, I will pick a conservative writer. Asking Brokaw to be fare and balanced when it comes to evaluating ANYTHING is like asking Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter to come out pro gay marriages, pro abortion and pro Democrat. Both of these individuals are just as disgusting as Brokaw and his ilk, although I sometimes think Coulter is at least funny. I thought this work was well organized and I thought it was quite readable. The author did pick some very interesting individual to interview and include in his book. I was glad he was able to record their thoughts and views. I found this interesting, informative and useful.
DISLIKED: When I received this work I thought it was going to be another one like The Greatest Generation, which I felt was truly a unique and useful book...one of the better ones of this genre written over the past two decades. It was absolutely fascinating. Boy, was I wrong! Brokaw has, for the most part, interviewed only celebrities and want to be celebrities. In Greatest Generation, this author offered us a wonderful cross section of individuals. In this work we get only "big names" that the author seems to gloat over like they were his private collection of "famous and powerful people I have known, and look at me, am I not very, very important. He comes across as a big time name dropper. I feel the writer of this work missed a wonderful opportunity here. I also disagreed (this is a personal thing and perhaps many will not share my feelings with me) with many of the conclusions that Brokaw came to. We will not be able to evaluate the impact of the 1960s on our society for at least another fifty or more years. I did not like the almost manic effort the author put into this work trying to compare Iraq with Viet Nam. Hey Tom, different time, different circumstances, different war! I expected this book to give the liberal side of the story...I wanted it to, just like when I read a book by Limbaugh, I expect to get a conservative view point. But Brokaw probably went a bit across the line with this one...hey, he is suppose to be a reporter, even if not much of one.
This work is well worth the read and I am glad I have a copy. I would not suggest though, that anyone who desires to learn what the sixties were really about, use this work as the beginning and end of all works. Just read it, keep it in context and then read some other books on the same subject. I am giving this one three stars rather than four simply because I do not like Tom Brokaw. Tom states over and over again throughout the book how horrible it was that the country turned against the individual G.I. rather than just on the government. Tom, Tom, Tom, I may be well into my dotage now, but my memory is not all that bad. You, of all the talking heads were the worse one in that aspect. Your voice inflection, expressions on your face and the syntax you use in your reading the news was quite obvious to all of us. We have not forgotten.
 Boom June 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book was very interesting and a quick read. But it was also too long and was redundant at times. The use of pictures to show people discussed both in the sixties and as they are today was very effective. While the book was about the Boom generation Brokow spends quite a bit of time on people from his generation as well as writing about his own personal life. All in all the book provides a good incite into what was happening in the late 1960's and was worth the investment of time to read.
 pretentious hogwash May 14, 2008
2 out of 11 found this review helpful
What is it all of the sudden with all these books on the 1960's written by old, grizzled baby-boomers who look upon the 1960's as something revolutionary or innovative? It must be nostalgia, because the 1960's were neither revolutionary nor innovative.
Sorry, but living through the depression, fighting in WW II, and constructing progressive social policies and organizational structures trumps a few riots, getting high at a muddy concert in New York, and driving around aimlessly in VW vans. And what has this generation of dim-wits left us? Crippling national debt, a crappy environment, government policies (and constitutions) that limit the rights of people based on religion and sexual orientation, and a reluctance to fund the education of the nation's youth (while paradoxically enjoying the benefits the higher incomes derived from society paying for their education). For revolutionary, more progressive, and innovative thought, please look to other generations. Haymarket, Bay View, and desegregating the military are the stuff of true social progressivism. Woodstock, a bunch of whiny, baked hippies rioting at a political convention, and the massive ingestion of vast quantities of LSD pale by comparison.
A better title for this book would have been "whimper," because that is what the 60's will be remembered for in the long run. And where did it get us? If we got anywhere, it was not because of this generation. It was *in spite* of them.
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