1970s Books - Page 5

VERY 70'S

Peter Knobler, Greg Mitchell

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Editorial Review:

From the liveliest bastion of counterculture expression--Crawdaddy magazine--comes a journey through the '70s with writers and celebrities whose names, opinions, and contributions resonant today, including John Lennon, P.J. O'Rourke, Gilda Radner, Abbie Hoffman, George Lucas, and William Burroughs.

Kent State Coverup

Joseph Kelner, James Munves

List Price: $15.00 By: Harpercollins Amazon Marketplace: 21 new & used starting at $0.73

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> Ohio

Editorial Review:

On May 4, 1970, two platoons of Ohio National Guardsmen fired on a crowd of students at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine. Neither the federal government nor the state of Ohio took any responsibility for the guardsmen's actions. Through the account of the subsequent civil trial, we follow the events of that tragic day, as experienced by the victims and their families, and share their frustration as they try to discover the truth.

Historical Dictionary of the 1970s

Amazon Price: $86.25 List Price: $129.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Greenwood Press Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $4.19

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Editorial Review:

The 1970s were difficult years for the United States, a time when long-held convictions were challenged and the nation experienced a collective identity crisis. Women and minorities called into question the belief that freedom and equality are the birthright of all Americans. Watergate and related scandals of the Nixon administration damaged the country's faith in politicians and the political system. The Arab oil boycott, the energy crisis, the environmental movement, and years of stagflation raised doubts about the future of the nation's economy, and in the jungles of Vietnam, many Americans began to doubt their ability to protect the world from Communism. This book includes entries on the prominent people, significant events, issues and controversies, and the culture of the decade.

Nixon, Kissinger, and U.S. Foreign Policy Making: The Machinery of Crisis

Asaf Siniver

Amazon Price: $74.13 List Price: $80.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Cambridge University Press Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $37.98

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Editorial Review:

The Machinery of Crisis examines for the first time the important role of crisis management in the making of U.S. foreign policy during the Nixon-Kissinger years. Notorious for their tight grip on the machinery of U.S. foreign policy, the book offers a critical account of the manner in which the president and his national security advisor dominated the structures and processes of foreign policy making. By drawing on a wealth of previously classified documents, Siniver reveals the story of the Washington Special Action Group, which managed foreign policy crises in the Nixon administration. In this thoroughly researched account of the performance of Nixon, Kissinger and the Washington Special Actions group in four international crises, Siniver provides a fresh analysis of the important relationship between individuals and the advisory system in the making of U.S. foreign policy during international crisis.

The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat

Bob Woodward

List Price: $29.95 By: Simon & Schuster Audio Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Excellent writing, dull reading 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I began reading Bob Woodward a couple years ago with "Bush at War", and last fall read "All the President's Men". I very much enjoyed the impartial, objective view presented in these works, and especially enjoyed the insight into the process of journalism. When I decided to begin listening to audiobooks in my daily commute, found "The Secret Man".

The book is essentially a retelling of "All the President's Men" (and perhaps "The Final Days", which I have not yet read) but with more direct focus on Woodward, Mark Felt (now known as informant "Deep Throat"), and their long-term relationship which began even before the Watergate scandal. It gives a much deeper insight into the character and motivation of Felt, the frustration and interference he encountered from the Nixon administration (beginning with the ITT/Dita Beard investigation, which Woodward describes as "a dress rehearsal for Watergate"), and the effect that Felt's role as Deep Throat may have played in his later years.

While I very much enjoyed the authorship of Woodward, I disliked the narration by Boyd Gaines. His delivery is dry, slow and deliberate, almost monotone, which very little intonation. I often found myself inadvertantly "tuning out" for a few seconds or almost a minute, which caused me to have to rewind in order to pick up on important points. This was in stark contrast to "My Life" by Bill Clinton, whose narration I found very engaging, or Tom Wolfe's "A man in Full", narrated by David Ogden Stiers, whose vivid narration makes each word and character come alive before me.

In short, regarding "The Secret Man" - Get the text version, but pass on the audiobook (or indeed, ANY audiobook narrated by Boyd Gaines, including "State of War" by James Risen).

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis : With Excerpts from an Essay on Watergate

Bill D. Moyers, Henry Steele Commager

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Editorial Review:

Based on an acclaimed PBS documentary, The Secret Government analyzes the threats to constitutional government posed by an illegitimate network of spies, profiteers, mercenaries, ex-generals and "superpatriots" who have tried, at various times, to take foreign policy into their own hands.

Pat Nixon: The Untold Story

Julie Nixon Eisenhower

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

"iron and courage," and a lot of love 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This is one of the most engrossing books I have ever read; fast paced, extremely moving in parts, painstakingly researched, and written in a solid, straightforward style .
Pat Nixon was born in 1912, and after her mother's death when Pat was 13, she had a hard existence that taught her the survival skills to work her way through her education during the Depression, the many political campaigns that sometimes ended in failure, and the stress and isolation of being First Lady during times of war, revolt, and impeachment.
It is also a love story; it was love at first sight for Richard, but it took many ardent, romantic letters and several years of wooing to win the heart of this strong and fiercely independent woman...for him, she was always "part of everything beautiful I see," and he never tired of telling her how proud he was of her.
There are excerpts from many letters, journal entries, and interviews with friends and family, as well as conversations between mother and daughter. Also fascinating are the glimpses into the lives of the powerful and famous, like J.Paul Getty, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, Leonid Brezhnev, and many more.

The early chapters will be interesting for those who like me, live in Southern California, as a snapshot of what life was like in the first half of the 20th century; the descriptions show how much it has changed, and it is also significant to take note of the growth of our government since the days when Nixon was vice president in the '50s. The recounting of the violence and unrest of the '60s in the middle chapters vividly brings to life that troubled time, which we tend to gloss over and forget. There is much history in this book, that provides a good perspective to the world conditions of the present era.
Mrs. Eisenhower does not shy away from the downward spiral of the Watergate crisis, and is very blunt about how it affected her family; she truly does tell us "The Untold Story," and lays out many facts, succinctly and with candor. Written in 1986, it has many marvelous photographs, and clear, readable print. The editing is terrific; there are no dull passages, and no awkward phrases. I am in the habit of giving books away once read, but this is one I will keep.

Mrs. Nixon passed on the 22nd of June, 1993, exactly ten months before her husband. They both rest side by side, surrounded by aromatic roses, blue agapanthas, and the sound of birdsongs, in the garden of the extraordinary Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California. The peace and beauty of this memorial site is overwhelming, and so fitting for this courageous, loving woman.

Square Dancing in the Ice Age

Abbie Hoffman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

My first Abbie Hoffman book and what turned me into a fan. 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I picked up this book in 10th grade and everyone that saw me read it thought that I had an interest in Square Dancing. When I said that he was talking about the disappointment he felt in the Carter administration, they thought that I was talking about the Hostage Crisis which was just a small part of it.

Even though it is written in the 70s, this is a quintessential book for anyone obsessed with 60s counterculture. Abbie Hoffman living on the run writes everything from the perspective of the Yippie extraordinaire. From posing as a restaurant critic to mocking Pat Robertson to expressing disappointment in the first liberal Democratic President since Johnson, Abbie Hoffman's perspective is one of dissatisfaction coupled with love of America. He will be missed.

What particularly impressed me with this book was the anti-myth stance. Hoffman knows that he created the myths of the 60s hippie more than anyone else, but he downplays the "voice of a generation" stance. When he reviews a movie with an Abbie Hoffman inspired character, he is fighting for his own personal honor. There's also a decidely refreshing anti-PC strain running through the book. This man fights for the environment, fights for the dignity of the human and is fiercely anti-war, but he doesn't dismiss his critics as idiots. He also refrains from getting into academic polemics that have killed more than one student organization that sets out to do something decent and ends up fighting. When I read The Strawberry Alarm Clock I was utterly turned off by the pompous main character and his "everyone hates us so we hate everyone" stance. Sadly the SAC narrator is the majority and people like Abbie Hoffman are the minority.

Throughout this book there is a strong moral stance, maybe not on the sexual,monetary or drug front but on the shared humanity. He speaks for compassion, the environment and the human even at his most foolish. The essay where he mocks Pat Robertson there is a gentleness to the mockery, as if Pat Robertson doesn't know what a mockery he is making of himself.

Great essays include the title one about the Carter administration, the essay about the 700 Club, and the last one concerning building an environmental movement in upstate New York. Other essays are dated, but for the most part this is. . . an outstanding. . . book. Abbie Hoffman will be missed.

Richard Nixon

Vamik D. Volkan, Norman Itzkowitz, Andrew W. Dod

List Price: $43.00 By: Columbia University Press Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $1.49

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Despite an abundance of literature on Richard Nixon, the man behind the most spectacular crash-and-burn career of modern political history has remained an enigma. What lay behind his obsessive hunger for power and control, his paranoid attacks against enemies real and perceived, his refusal to accept defeat? Why did a man who had achieved so much feel so unfulfilled even at the height of his power? And what drove the president responsible for such triumphs as the opening of relations with China to the depths of the most devastating political scandal in American history? Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography is the first thoroughgoing psychological portrait of the 37th president, drawing upon telling interviews with Nixon intimates, published and archived materials, while employing a rigorous psychoanalytic methodology. Tracing the development of Nixon's complex psyche, the authors provide new insight not only into his unconscious motivations but also into the way they influenced his political actions, whether shrewd or disastrous. The authors explore Nixon's difficult upbringing,his mean-spirited, abusive father and often-absent mother; episodic physical trauma and mental deprivation; the tragic deaths of his two brothers; his rejection by the first woman he hoped to marry; and the long pursuit of his eventual wife, Pat. Nixon emerges as a narcissistic man with an extraordinary sense of purpose, yet one who suffered from inner conflicts and self-destructive tendencies. His desire to heal difficult political conflicts and his need to punish himself continually were attempts to reconcile the crippling contradiction between a grandiose self image and an impoverished private sense of worth. Projecting his own devalued self image onto others, attempting to control and destroy them, Nixon surrendered to the excessive suspiciousness that would eventually lead to his downfall. Here are the three faces of Nixon's complex psyche,the grandiose persona, which manifested itself in bold policy moves like The New Federalism and the China initiative; the peacemaker, whose desire to heal internal conflicts can be seen in the policies of detente and the Southern desegregation strategy; and the paranoid degraded self, which struck out against those who had humiliated him and was responsible for the bombing of Cambodia and the Watergate break-in. This probing analysis makes intelligible the moments in Nixon's presidency that have provoked much speculation but few answers, from his attempt to talk to Vietnam war protesters during a pre-dawn visit to the Lincoln Memorial to his keeping of the White House tapes. A more nuanced, more humanized Nixon emerges in a book that also provides compelling evidence that the politics of a nation is subject to the unconscious needs, fears, and fantasies of its leaders.

Lost Honor

John W. Dean

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fine work on John Dean's life post watergate 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 8 people found this review helpful.

It has been several years since I read this book, however it was a very good follow up to John Dean's book on the Watergate affair and his role in it.

I have found that many times over the years after I read a book, and become intrigued with the main character's life, hoping for a sequel. This book filled that need for me.

John Dean is a very intersting, multi faceted, much misunderstood individual. Reading the second book, helps to understand him and his motivations in the Watergate affair.

Editorial Review:

Released from prison in January 1975, John Dean thought that the nightmare was over, that Watergate was behind him. He was wrong, because even as he tried to move away from the events of Watergate, he felt compelled to look deeper into the one remaining mystery of that era: the motives and identity of the man who had come to be known as "Deep Throat." The impact of Dean's ultimate conclusion goes far beyond what once had seemed a harmless piece of trivia. Dean's conclusion shakes our confidence in the concept of trust itself, and raises almost as many questions as it answers.

"A must read about the quest for a new beginning from one of the best known Watergate figures." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)