WITNESS TO THE REVOLUTION

This riveting oral history of American society in the turbulent years of the Vietnam War is told by those who were in the thick of it—including all-new, exclusive interviews with Jane Fonda, Daniel Ellsberg, Bill Ayers, and many more. This is the right time for these stories. Between movements such as Black Lives Matter and civil liberties activists like Edward Snowden, we are once again in a cultural moment of confrontation and distrust. There are lessons that the current generation of activists can learn from the last one—and Clara Bingham brings those lessons to vivid life in the words of the people who lived them.

During the academic calendar year of 1969 and 1970, there were 9000 protests and 84 acts of arson or bombings at schools across America. 2.5 million students went on strike, and 700 colleges shut down. WITNESS TO THE REVOLUTION brings readers into a moment when it seemed that everything was about to change, when the anti-war movement could no longer be written off as fringe, and when America seemed on the brink of a revolution at home, even as it continued to fight a long war abroad. These chapters are narrative snapshots of key moments and critical groups that sprung up in some of the most turbulent years of the 20th century. As a whole, they capture the essence of an era. They questioned and challenged nearly every aspect of society—work, capitalism, family, education, male-female relations, sex, science, and wealth—and many of their questions remain important to this day.

A sampling of insights: how the killing of four students at Kent State turned a straight social worker into a hippie overnight; how the draft turned Ivy League-educated young men into fugitives and prisoners; how powerful government insiders walked away from their careers; how Vietnam vets came home vowing to stop the war; how, in the name of peace, intellectuals became bombers; how alienation from the establishment and the older generation compelled people to drop out, experiment with psychedelic drugs, and live communally; and how the civil rights and antiwar movements gave birth to feminism.

Clara Bingham is a former Newsweek White House Correspondent. She is the author of WOMEN ON THE HILL: Challenging the Culture of Congress and, with Laura Leedy Gansler, CLASS ACTION: The Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Talk, The Washington Monthly, and Ms.