Great, compelling, engrossing history of the late 60s. In 1964 LBJ and the Democrats won a landslide election. The Republicans were split and in disarray. The Dems passed the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and it looked like the country was pretty unified. But Vietnam and the Civil Rights protests caused a civil war in the Democratic party, Nixon was elected in 68, and re-elected in a landslide in 72. This book is about how the country split in that time period, between the people who believed in civil rights and peace in Vietnam, and other people who hated those people. Because the war in Vietnam didn't turn out all that well, the history of the counter-protesters has been largely ignored (at least it was in my education), so it was surprising to me to read about all the people who hated the Woodstockers, who beat hippies in the street, the 60% of the country who said that the Kent State students brought their shootings on themselves.
This was the moment when Nixon (and so the Republicans) realized that they could alienate a huge swath of the working class population from the Democrats by painting the Dems as a bunch of hippie coddling, gay loving, pot smoking coastal elites. Pretty neat trick, since LBJ had just finished passing Great Society legislation that directly helped those working class people. Highly, highly recommended. This book is long, but filled with wonderfully detailed history.