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In the New World: Growing Up with America from the Sixties to the Eighties
We first meet Larry Wright in 1960. He is thirteen and moving with his family to Dallas, the essential city of the New World just beginning to rise across the southern rim of the United States. As we follow him through the next two decades—the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the devastating assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the sexual revolution, the crisis of Watergate, and the emergence of Ronald Reagan—we relive the pivotal and shocking events of those crowded years.
Lawrence Wright has written the autobiography of a generation, giving back to us with stunning force the feelings of those turbulent times when the euphoria of Kennedy’s America would come to its shocking end. Filled with compassion and insight, In the New World is both the intimate tale of one man’s coming-of-age, and a universal story of the American experience of two crucial decades.
Lawrence Wright has written the autobiography of a generation, giving back to us with stunning force the feelings of those turbulent times when the euphoria of Kennedy’s America would come to its shocking end. Filled with compassion and insight, In the New World is both the intimate tale of one man’s coming-of-age, and a universal story of the American experience of two crucial decades.
338 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1987
35 people are currently reading
713 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Wright
84 books2,437 followersLawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He has won a Pulitzer Prize and three National Magazine Awards.
His latest book, The Human Scale , is a sweeping, timely thriller, in which a Palestinian-American FBI agent teams up with a hardline Israeli cop to solve the murder of the Israeli police chief in Gaza. According to The New York Times, “Wright succeeds in this complex, deeply felt work.”
He is the author of 11 nonfiction books. His book about the rise of al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, 2006), was published to immediate and widespread acclaim. It has been translated into 25 languages and won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. It was made into a series for Hulu in 2018, starring Jeff Daniels, Alec Baldwin, and Tahar Rahim.
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (Knopf, 2013) was a New York Times bestseller. Wright and director Alex Gibney turned it into an HBO documentary, which won three Emmys, including best documentary. Wright and Gibney also teamed up to produce another Emmy-winning documentary, for Showtime, about the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In addition to The Human Scale, Wright has three other novels: Noriega: God’s Favorite (Simon and Schuster, 2000) which was made into a Showtime movie starring Bob Hoskins; The End of October (Knopf, 2020), a bestseller about a viral pandemic that came out right at the beginning of COVID; Mr. Texas (Knopf, 2023), which has been optioned as a limited streaming series.
In 2006, Wright premiered his first one-man play, “My Trip to Al-Qaeda,” at The New Yorker Festival, which led to a sold-out six-week run off-Broadway, before traveling to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. It was made into a documentary film of the same name, directed by Alex Gibney, for HBO.
Before he wrote the novel, Wright wrote and performed a one-man show also called The Human Scale, about the standoff between Israel and Hamas over the abduction of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. The Public Theater in New York produced the play, which ran for a month off-Broadway in 2010, before moving to the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv. Many of the ideas developed in that play later evolved into the novel of the same name, published 15 years later.
In addition to his one-man productions, Wright has written five other plays that have enjoyed productions around the country, including Camp David, about the Carter, Begin, and Sadat summit in 1978; and Cleo, about the making of the movie Cleopatra.
Wright is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Society of American Historians, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also serves as the keyboard player in the Austin-based blues band, WhoDo.
His latest book, The Human Scale , is a sweeping, timely thriller, in which a Palestinian-American FBI agent teams up with a hardline Israeli cop to solve the murder of the Israeli police chief in Gaza. According to The New York Times, “Wright succeeds in this complex, deeply felt work.”
He is the author of 11 nonfiction books. His book about the rise of al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, 2006), was published to immediate and widespread acclaim. It has been translated into 25 languages and won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. It was made into a series for Hulu in 2018, starring Jeff Daniels, Alec Baldwin, and Tahar Rahim.
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (Knopf, 2013) was a New York Times bestseller. Wright and director Alex Gibney turned it into an HBO documentary, which won three Emmys, including best documentary. Wright and Gibney also teamed up to produce another Emmy-winning documentary, for Showtime, about the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In addition to The Human Scale, Wright has three other novels: Noriega: God’s Favorite (Simon and Schuster, 2000) which was made into a Showtime movie starring Bob Hoskins; The End of October (Knopf, 2020), a bestseller about a viral pandemic that came out right at the beginning of COVID; Mr. Texas (Knopf, 2023), which has been optioned as a limited streaming series.
In 2006, Wright premiered his first one-man play, “My Trip to Al-Qaeda,” at The New Yorker Festival, which led to a sold-out six-week run off-Broadway, before traveling to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. It was made into a documentary film of the same name, directed by Alex Gibney, for HBO.
Before he wrote the novel, Wright wrote and performed a one-man show also called The Human Scale, about the standoff between Israel and Hamas over the abduction of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. The Public Theater in New York produced the play, which ran for a month off-Broadway in 2010, before moving to the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv. Many of the ideas developed in that play later evolved into the novel of the same name, published 15 years later.
In addition to his one-man productions, Wright has written five other plays that have enjoyed productions around the country, including Camp David, about the Carter, Begin, and Sadat summit in 1978; and Cleo, about the making of the movie Cleopatra.
Wright is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Society of American Historians, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also serves as the keyboard player in the Austin-based blues band, WhoDo.
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November 2, 2015
Laurence Wright tells of his growing awareness of the world as he experienced the major events of the late 20th century. His family had moved from Oklahoma to Dallas where this book begins and ends. He is embarrassingly honest about his early views and awkwardness.
Wright remembers the dull Dallas of the 50s, a city of few minorities and strong right wing opinions. LBJ was spat upon and JFK was greeted to Dallas by ads accusing him of treason. It was the home of General Edwin Walker who was influential in the John Birch Society, but more famous for Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination attempt. Remembering people and events of his youth, Wright sees Texas, with Dallas in particular, as a part of a regional block, which through “new money” rivals the social and political prominence of the “Eastern Establishment”.
The Kennedy assassination looms as Wright describes the guilt feelings of the Kennedy-hating establishment of Dallas and the collective shame for having citizens such as Oswald and Jack Ruby. The conspiracies are touched on and personalized when Wright meets a former employee of Ruby’s in New Orleans (Oswald’s home town), Marilyn “Delilah” Walle, who 8 months later was shot and killed by a man to whom she had been married for one month ((see: Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination#24, she could have testified about Oswald's visit(s)to Ruby’s club)).
Never using the word “generation gap”, Wright shows how it played out in his family. His parents are part of the “new” America who had sacrificed to win a war against a real and definable evil and afterward saw their lives improve. They believed in Richard Nixon particularly in contrast to the “Old Establishment” represented by the Kennedy's. Through this bedrock faith in the nation that Nixon represented, they supported the Vietnam War even at the potential cost of their son.
He writes of traveling in Europe and reading the French philosophers and finding America wanting. He visits socialist countries. In telling his experience of the draft he shows how middle class whites were able to skirt service, leaving the burden to minorities and the poor. Wright too easily receives conscientious objector status and went to Egypt for his CO service. There is a lot of reflection on race and the Civil Rights movement. He never mentions the women’s movement. Expanding roles for women are mentioned as though they just happened. He tells how he changed when at 30 he decides to have children, which he formerly shunned due to his dismal view of politics and the future of the world's environment.
Wright re-recreates the Watergate era when Americans were riveted to the black and white daily TV drama. Through his parents, Wright shows the effect of the Watergate hearings on Nixon’s “silent majority”. He writes of southern pride with the subsequent election of Jimmy Carter and gives some detail on Georgia politics of the time.
The book ends in 1984 Republican Convention in Dallas, where Ronald Reagan, representative of the “new”, “non-eastern establishment” is confirmed as the new power in the nation. Here, Wright connects with delegate Eldridge Cleaver, whose book Soul on Ice once spoke to him and where General Walker had been busted for lewd behavior and had sold his home to the Hari Krishna's.
This is not a nostalgic romp of the past. This is a meaty narrative of how a real person actually grew to adulthood in this unusual time. In this as in his other early works, Wright shows the talent which will later have recognition in highly acclaimed reporting on 9/11 The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11and Scientology Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.
Like Wright, I’m a baby boomer and the book is the story of our shared history (inclusive of living a time in Cairo). Being from the northeast and female, I have a different take on the “new” vs. the “old” establishment, place more importance on the women’s movement and havw never heard anyone admire Charles Manson; none of this detracts from revisiting this time with Wright. I’d like to see Wright bring this up to date, with a book on Aging with America, or similar theme.
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January 12, 2016I read the 2013 re-issued edition. Favorite lines are as follows:
"I am now the age my father was when I began writing this book, nearly three decades ago. The America my generation leaves behind is better in some ways than the country that was given to us, and more flawed in others. In this moment, I find myself, as my father must have felt, caught between loss and hope. How I wish I could talk to him again! But the graveyards that hold the bones of our ancestors also contain the wisdom they accumulated through the lives they led. Our own old age, we sadly discover, is an orphanage, unsupervised by the voices of the past."
"Perhaps we were destined to arrive at the place we are now, but my own view is that many alternative futures awaited us on November 22, 1963, each of them better or worse in their own ways. The aim of this memoir is to capture the feeling of what it was like to be alive in a particularly strident place, in a particularly tumultuous time, when it seemed that all of civilization could end at any moment. I hope that this new edition will introduce the book to my children's generation, who will draw their own lessons from the history it enfolds. Not knowing how the story turns out is the curse of every generation, but also a source of purpose and even joy. In that way, the world is always new." (Preface, pp xiii-xiv)
"There is a moral transfer that takes place between the victor and the vanquished, which George Bailey writes about in his splendid book, Germans. The loss of German dignity after the war was followed by "a collateral loss of shame" on the part of the victors. We can see this, as Bailey points out, in the expulsion of nearly three million Czechs of German ancestry from the Sudeten portion of Czechoslovakia immediately after the war, and the renewed persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union, for reasons that were substantially the same as the Nazi persecution. "For me the most disgusting and dismaying result of World War II and its aftermath is this: that the exposure and universal condemnation of the moral insanity of the Nazis ministered to the reinforcement of the moral insanity of the Communists," writes Bailey. But wasn't there also a similar if not identical loss of shame in our own country? Not immediately after the war--the rebuilding of Europe was all to our credit--but later, wasn't there a kind of delayed reaction, which turned us from the Good Samaritan into a dangerously prideful bully, convinced we could do no wrong? Had we somehow been transformed into the enemy we had once destroyed? Isn't that the danger of victory?" (Un-America, p 163)
That being said, the book did not hold up all the way through. I was pleased to see Wright write so transparently about his affection for Jimmy Carter, as it gave me insight into the next of his books that I finished at the same time, "Thirteen Days in September."
"I am now the age my father was when I began writing this book, nearly three decades ago. The America my generation leaves behind is better in some ways than the country that was given to us, and more flawed in others. In this moment, I find myself, as my father must have felt, caught between loss and hope. How I wish I could talk to him again! But the graveyards that hold the bones of our ancestors also contain the wisdom they accumulated through the lives they led. Our own old age, we sadly discover, is an orphanage, unsupervised by the voices of the past."
"Perhaps we were destined to arrive at the place we are now, but my own view is that many alternative futures awaited us on November 22, 1963, each of them better or worse in their own ways. The aim of this memoir is to capture the feeling of what it was like to be alive in a particularly strident place, in a particularly tumultuous time, when it seemed that all of civilization could end at any moment. I hope that this new edition will introduce the book to my children's generation, who will draw their own lessons from the history it enfolds. Not knowing how the story turns out is the curse of every generation, but also a source of purpose and even joy. In that way, the world is always new." (Preface, pp xiii-xiv)
"There is a moral transfer that takes place between the victor and the vanquished, which George Bailey writes about in his splendid book, Germans. The loss of German dignity after the war was followed by "a collateral loss of shame" on the part of the victors. We can see this, as Bailey points out, in the expulsion of nearly three million Czechs of German ancestry from the Sudeten portion of Czechoslovakia immediately after the war, and the renewed persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union, for reasons that were substantially the same as the Nazi persecution. "For me the most disgusting and dismaying result of World War II and its aftermath is this: that the exposure and universal condemnation of the moral insanity of the Nazis ministered to the reinforcement of the moral insanity of the Communists," writes Bailey. But wasn't there also a similar if not identical loss of shame in our own country? Not immediately after the war--the rebuilding of Europe was all to our credit--but later, wasn't there a kind of delayed reaction, which turned us from the Good Samaritan into a dangerously prideful bully, convinced we could do no wrong? Had we somehow been transformed into the enemy we had once destroyed? Isn't that the danger of victory?" (Un-America, p 163)
That being said, the book did not hold up all the way through. I was pleased to see Wright write so transparently about his affection for Jimmy Carter, as it gave me insight into the next of his books that I finished at the same time, "Thirteen Days in September."
October 25, 2023
Just the genre for this one is compelling: It combines a personal memoir mixed with a look at American history from 1960 to 1984, detailing the author's own experiences of national and global changes. A sheer memoir can reflect too much self-absorption, but this approach gives both the history and a reflective experience of it.
Particularly interesting was the Dallas-based experience of the Kennedy assassination, and the stigma that went with it. But the larger sense is the geographical identity of the the "New World" (i.e. American westward migration/development), this contrasted with the "old world" of New England elitism. The shift in governance and the changes in American self-concept go along with this larger theme.
The cast of characters has a heavy focus on U.S. Presidents, beginning with Eisenhower (solely by reflection), but really starting with JFK going all the way up to Reagan's re-election campaign in 1984. There was also some good attention given to Martin Luther King, RFK, and the individuals surrounding the Kennedy assassination (especially Oswald and Jack Ruby) - as well as other more peripheral and eccentric figures.
I appreciated the author's generational take on his experience of the Vietnam era - of his coming of age in the time of the draft, and his subsequent experience as a bit of an exile in a teaching position in Egypt. Wright is an excellent writer; he gave a very good expose' of the generational tensions, especially those between him and his father - and how they reflected a shifting national identity across the generational span.
It is typical of Wright to engage in religious topics along the way, and to do it thoughtfully. Here it came across as an honest sense of his developing perspective ("testimony" would be the religious word for it). Some of his later writings have had a condescending tone, but I didn't find that here. And either way his take on religion is a smaller part of a larger piece.
This book takes you from the enthusiasms of the baby boom era and the hopes that were articulated by JFK, up through the bigger disillusionments of the Nixon/Watergate era and Vietnam. There's a heavy emphasis on Dallas that is pervasive. It's an older book and it feels like it deserves a sequel. A lot has happened since 1984.
Particularly interesting was the Dallas-based experience of the Kennedy assassination, and the stigma that went with it. But the larger sense is the geographical identity of the the "New World" (i.e. American westward migration/development), this contrasted with the "old world" of New England elitism. The shift in governance and the changes in American self-concept go along with this larger theme.
The cast of characters has a heavy focus on U.S. Presidents, beginning with Eisenhower (solely by reflection), but really starting with JFK going all the way up to Reagan's re-election campaign in 1984. There was also some good attention given to Martin Luther King, RFK, and the individuals surrounding the Kennedy assassination (especially Oswald and Jack Ruby) - as well as other more peripheral and eccentric figures.
I appreciated the author's generational take on his experience of the Vietnam era - of his coming of age in the time of the draft, and his subsequent experience as a bit of an exile in a teaching position in Egypt. Wright is an excellent writer; he gave a very good expose' of the generational tensions, especially those between him and his father - and how they reflected a shifting national identity across the generational span.
It is typical of Wright to engage in religious topics along the way, and to do it thoughtfully. Here it came across as an honest sense of his developing perspective ("testimony" would be the religious word for it). Some of his later writings have had a condescending tone, but I didn't find that here. And either way his take on religion is a smaller part of a larger piece.
This book takes you from the enthusiasms of the baby boom era and the hopes that were articulated by JFK, up through the bigger disillusionments of the Nixon/Watergate era and Vietnam. There's a heavy emphasis on Dallas that is pervasive. It's an older book and it feels like it deserves a sequel. A lot has happened since 1984.
February 15, 2009
God I love, love, love this book. Wright's prose is perfect. I discovered this at the beginning of my own political upheaval and personal disillusionment, (mid-2004) which proceeded to feel like I imagine the '60s felt for the previous generation. It was an eye opener.
January 31, 2018
This is Lawrence Wright's personal memoir, the publication of which preceded his Pulitzer-winning books The Looming Tower and Going Clear. In the New World is about coming in of age in a conservative world. He says that his family was moving up the class structure, and, as such, were always worried about losing what they had gained. His parents' generation discovered a kinship with the constituencies of Nixon and Reagan, while over the 60s and the 70s, Wright went left (but with a lot of doubts).
The basic idea is that the economic/social world of his parents -- the world of the South and Southwest in the USA -- is essentially the "new world" and is the dominant political pattern, especially for whites, in the USA after the 50s.
There's a lot of subtlety here and setting the record straight. For instance, Wright is good on noting the paradoxes of Nixon: Anti-communist, but also, in matter of implemented policies, essentially a mainstream liberal. Similarly, he points out the similarities between John F. Kennedy's and Reagan's policy proposals.
Thus the book is the "inside story" that might go with a history such as Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm. Highly recommended for people in their 20s who are perplexed by the politics of their grandparents.
Recommended. My only gripe is that the book really doesn't get that robustly into the 80s, and maybe peters out some in the final chapter or two.
The basic idea is that the economic/social world of his parents -- the world of the South and Southwest in the USA -- is essentially the "new world" and is the dominant political pattern, especially for whites, in the USA after the 50s.
There's a lot of subtlety here and setting the record straight. For instance, Wright is good on noting the paradoxes of Nixon: Anti-communist, but also, in matter of implemented policies, essentially a mainstream liberal. Similarly, he points out the similarities between John F. Kennedy's and Reagan's policy proposals.
Thus the book is the "inside story" that might go with a history such as Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm. Highly recommended for people in their 20s who are perplexed by the politics of their grandparents.
Recommended. My only gripe is that the book really doesn't get that robustly into the 80s, and maybe peters out some in the final chapter or two.
November 30, 2023
I approached this book eagerly, being of same age and similar experience of growing up disillusioned with America. Wright and I were both raised by WWII veterans who strongly loved the country. We were both deeply affected by the stunning assassination of President Kennedy, and our college years had many parallels of intellectual growth , radicalization and culture heroes.
Yet he was raised as a conservative Republican, and I as a loyal Democrat. He grew up in Dallas to wealth and Southern perspective; I was a Yankee from the Midwest, and very middle class. Reading both of his perspectives, political arguments with his father, and his evolution post-graduation was illuminating and interesting for me.
Amazingly, we both were deeply affected by our reading of Camus, our strongly antiwar, Marxian, and pro civil rights politics, not to mention brief revolutionary posturing. I was stunned to learn that we both cast our first Presidential votes with write-ins for Eldridge Cleaver!! (The only other person I’ve known who admits to this!).
I’ve been a long-time fan of Wright’s writing and commentary. I regard his 9/11 book “The Looming Tower” to be the very best journalism of the events leading up to 9/11; I just read his recently released novel “Mr. Texas: A Novel” and loved it! I’m not sure how others would be as interested in this book, but, if the topic interests you, I say “ Go for it!!
Yet he was raised as a conservative Republican, and I as a loyal Democrat. He grew up in Dallas to wealth and Southern perspective; I was a Yankee from the Midwest, and very middle class. Reading both of his perspectives, political arguments with his father, and his evolution post-graduation was illuminating and interesting for me.
Amazingly, we both were deeply affected by our reading of Camus, our strongly antiwar, Marxian, and pro civil rights politics, not to mention brief revolutionary posturing. I was stunned to learn that we both cast our first Presidential votes with write-ins for Eldridge Cleaver!! (The only other person I’ve known who admits to this!).
I’ve been a long-time fan of Wright’s writing and commentary. I regard his 9/11 book “The Looming Tower” to be the very best journalism of the events leading up to 9/11; I just read his recently released novel “Mr. Texas: A Novel” and loved it! I’m not sure how others would be as interested in this book, but, if the topic interests you, I say “ Go for it!!
March 2, 2013
Excellent account of the turbulent times in which the author grew up and his own journey through them.
December 23, 2018
So interesting! He is the exact same age as my eldest brother, so it was cool reading about what life was like then. I was sad when it ended.
February 2, 2025
1/31/2025
very good! i loved the change of content and pace from my usual books. i found his writing style to be very conversational and thoughtful, and i liked how it felt like i was sitting in my living room after thanksgiving and listening to my family members just discuss history (in a good way).
i do feel like the timeline of the content that he discussed could have been a little more polished. i get it, i know that history is hardly linear in reality, but for most of the book it felt like 50% was following his actual life and 50% was just jumping around the time period. no chapter really had a specific theme; the book was like "this is what the book is about. the book is the book, not a summation of chapters", if that makes sense. it was nice, but because it was so conversational i felt like i wanted to jump in and ask clarifying questions a lot.
another point: sometimes throughout the book, he would state things like "I thought about Nixon all the time" or "Jimmy Carter felt like MY president" or "I idolized Kennedy" and as someone who read the whole book i was just kind of like... really? he didn't spend nearly enough time on Carter to say the things he did about how he felt about him. when discussing Kennedy, he mostly focused on how much he resented him for being killed in Dallas, or how much America glorified him (and why they were wrong for doing so). his thoughts on Nixon were very interesting though, he covered his ass on that one. but for such a thoughtful book, he didn't back up many of the generalizations he made about his feelings towards the various presidents he discussed. just a little gripe, but it made me raise my eyebrow and take a step back cause he contradicted himself on what seemed like some pretty core messages.
overall i found it to be a very thought-provoking book. his description of his youthful self and his feelings towards America, politics, war, justice, and equality are alarmingly similar to what I feel as a young member of Gen Z today, and what I see in my peers. it makes me think, do the boomers hate us because they once were us? or, even more importantly, will Gen Z grow up to be just as narcissistic, insensitive, and untrustworthy as the Boomers are now?
another thing I have to mention: he articulated how the emotional and charged politics of his youth affected his relationship with his father in such an spot-on way. i see the exact same thing happening today amongst countless of my friends -- i don't relate anymore, but Covid me definitely did. his way of saying that he assigned his father with things he didn't even believe rings so true. just so much of this book is scarily accurate to what it feels like as a high schooler today. maybe this is just me growing up.
very good book, loved the blend between memoir and history of America. thank you for the recommendation, Danielle!
very good! i loved the change of content and pace from my usual books. i found his writing style to be very conversational and thoughtful, and i liked how it felt like i was sitting in my living room after thanksgiving and listening to my family members just discuss history (in a good way).
i do feel like the timeline of the content that he discussed could have been a little more polished. i get it, i know that history is hardly linear in reality, but for most of the book it felt like 50% was following his actual life and 50% was just jumping around the time period. no chapter really had a specific theme; the book was like "this is what the book is about. the book is the book, not a summation of chapters", if that makes sense. it was nice, but because it was so conversational i felt like i wanted to jump in and ask clarifying questions a lot.
another point: sometimes throughout the book, he would state things like "I thought about Nixon all the time" or "Jimmy Carter felt like MY president" or "I idolized Kennedy" and as someone who read the whole book i was just kind of like... really? he didn't spend nearly enough time on Carter to say the things he did about how he felt about him. when discussing Kennedy, he mostly focused on how much he resented him for being killed in Dallas, or how much America glorified him (and why they were wrong for doing so). his thoughts on Nixon were very interesting though, he covered his ass on that one. but for such a thoughtful book, he didn't back up many of the generalizations he made about his feelings towards the various presidents he discussed. just a little gripe, but it made me raise my eyebrow and take a step back cause he contradicted himself on what seemed like some pretty core messages.
overall i found it to be a very thought-provoking book. his description of his youthful self and his feelings towards America, politics, war, justice, and equality are alarmingly similar to what I feel as a young member of Gen Z today, and what I see in my peers. it makes me think, do the boomers hate us because they once were us? or, even more importantly, will Gen Z grow up to be just as narcissistic, insensitive, and untrustworthy as the Boomers are now?
another thing I have to mention: he articulated how the emotional and charged politics of his youth affected his relationship with his father in such an spot-on way. i see the exact same thing happening today amongst countless of my friends -- i don't relate anymore, but Covid me definitely did. his way of saying that he assigned his father with things he didn't even believe rings so true. just so much of this book is scarily accurate to what it feels like as a high schooler today. maybe this is just me growing up.
very good book, loved the blend between memoir and history of America. thank you for the recommendation, Danielle!
May 9, 2023
In the New World: Growing Up with America from the Sixties to the Eighties by Lawrence Wright is a well-constructed book about being a baby boomer. Wright is one year older than me, so there is much that is shared: Kennedy’s assassination and that of others, the war in Southeast Asia and other pivotal events. There is much that I shared, but as a middle-class White guy, his life is different. I learned from his insights, particularly how he struggled with the draft. I remembered the young men around me who also had to make major decisions. Wright does recognize the many ways that young white men could avoid serving in the war zone.
As a White man from the South, Dallas in fact, so the site of Kennedy’s assassination was a scar that he and other people from Dallas had to wear. His awareness of the Civil Rights movement is remote. I learned much about the era and his life. Yet, I was too consumed with racial and gender issues to ever see anyone in the White house during these decades as “my president.” I think I could see his privilege more clearly than he could, but he shares much that we need to pay attention to in contemporary times. As an investigator, I did learn much of what the different president did, even if there was much obscured by the themes they voiced when running.
As a White man from the South, Dallas in fact, so the site of Kennedy’s assassination was a scar that he and other people from Dallas had to wear. His awareness of the Civil Rights movement is remote. I learned much about the era and his life. Yet, I was too consumed with racial and gender issues to ever see anyone in the White house during these decades as “my president.” I think I could see his privilege more clearly than he could, but he shares much that we need to pay attention to in contemporary times. As an investigator, I did learn much of what the different president did, even if there was much obscured by the themes they voiced when running.
July 17, 2023
Wright is an author I have on my "will read anything by" list. He always writes something new and different, but his style remains the same. If I could define it, I would. Journalistic empathy, I guess?
In the New World is a very early book, one he wrote before all the accolades and prizes came rolling in. He inserts himself into the narrative which is not quite a memoir nor a history. As a boomer myself, I recognized the feelings and dilemmas Wright focuses on here. He made me remember those heady nights of debating philosophy with my cohorts and asking myself what was happening to my country. His personal story also involved the draft and more divisive family dynamics than I experienced. This book was written in 1987, and I would love to know how he feels about it now because even then he was experiencing changes in viewpoints. I think I'll reread "God Save Texas" for further insight.
In the New World is a very early book, one he wrote before all the accolades and prizes came rolling in. He inserts himself into the narrative which is not quite a memoir nor a history. As a boomer myself, I recognized the feelings and dilemmas Wright focuses on here. He made me remember those heady nights of debating philosophy with my cohorts and asking myself what was happening to my country. His personal story also involved the draft and more divisive family dynamics than I experienced. This book was written in 1987, and I would love to know how he feels about it now because even then he was experiencing changes in viewpoints. I think I'll reread "God Save Texas" for further insight.
April 3, 2021
I read this book at the same time as Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography of a Young Black Girl in the Rural South. The books don't cover the exact same time period but they do overlap. It amazed me how different the experiences of the two authors were. Lawrence Wright is the son of upper middle class white parents. The political issue that affected him the most during the 1960s was the war in Vietnam. Anne Moody was the poor daughter of black parents. The political issue that affected her the most during the 1960s was civil rights. Wright is aware of civil rights and knows things are changing but it is a side issue. His second most important issue is the Kennedy assassination and how it affected his home town of Dallas.
Reading the two books together gave me a fuller picture of the times.
Reading the two books together gave me a fuller picture of the times.
December 24, 2021
Purchased this book in November 2015
...6 years on my TBR shelf. I
New Year's Resolution: must seriously clear out my TBR
in 2022.
16 chapters covers 1960s - 1984...a nostalgic look at
the past with Wright's coming of age and acerbic father-son
tension mixed in.
Best chapters were about Kennedy - Nixon - LBJ
I lived those years and it was great to revisit them.
The rest of the book? I skimmed chapters 11-16...just not interested.
...6 years on my TBR shelf. I
New Year's Resolution: must seriously clear out my TBR
in 2022.
16 chapters covers 1960s - 1984...a nostalgic look at
the past with Wright's coming of age and acerbic father-son
tension mixed in.
Best chapters were about Kennedy - Nixon - LBJ
I lived those years and it was great to revisit them.
The rest of the book? I skimmed chapters 11-16...just not interested.
July 21, 2022
“Texas, Texas, Texas. I knew its history, its traditions, its nasal accents, its drab landscape. I knew it well enough to hate it more than any place in the world. What a mean and provincial land, how stupidly rich, how desperately insecure, how endless and physically unrewarding! And yet, as we came into Austin, I felt more at home than I had in years.”
Read
July 20, 2021Lawrence Wright's part history/part memoir of growing up in Dallas during the 1950s and '60s, his university days at Tulane in New Orleans, his rage against the Vietnam War, and forays into Europe and Egypt, all set against the backdrop of American events of his formative years.
January 17, 2021
Solid book about 60s political growth that becomes much more important if one lives in Texas and should be essential reading for Dallasites.
July 7, 2022
4.25 stars
June 5, 2025
Could be such a great book, but the writing is so dry, it makes it impossibly difficult to slog through.
July 3, 2025
One of my earliest memories was my parents reaction to JFKs death.
July 27, 2021
It’s difficult to write a review of a book that seems so close to me. Wright was a year behind me at Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, and—though I didn’t know him then—his growing up was so like mine that he often seemed to be speaking for me. However, he is “smoothly articulate”, as the Chicago Sun-Times reviewer said—so much so that he is able to phrase insights that I would not have been able to put into words, though I could recognize them when I saw them on the page. I probably highlighted this book more than any other that I’ve read recently, and I intend to read all his other books.
November 17, 2017
I found this to be a fascinating book. The author and I are approximately the same age and were in our formative years during the many significant events that shaped America's character and future during the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of the Kennedy's and King, the Viet Nam War, the Civil Rights struggle, and Watergate among others. Although we were from differing economic and geographic backgrounds, we both had to deal with similar life-shaping events such as getting through college, dealing with military obligations (draft), finding a meaningful occupation, and starting a family. After reading this book, it seems to me the author took copious notes during this period and was able to capture his own personal feelings and beliefs in light of the current events of the time. It allowed me to reflect on the times and how they affected me personally.
January 9, 2014
i haven't been drawn into something so effortlessly in a while. the man's writing is clear and the pace steady, and it's great when an author can write about politics without being strident, yet without withholding his own conclusions. more of a report than an opinion-piece for sure. Looming Tower was similarly excellent.
the book is especially interesting because you get a sense of what it was like to live in dallas and to understand the context in which the assassination of JFK happened. i had been unaware until i read this how many people blamed dallas in general for this event, and how that felt to someone who lived there. also the book provides a broad canvas of the political climate there and of the zeitgeist in the country at the time. i am sure as i read the second half of the book i will be given other insights.
... finished it. a rare thing, a history/political book that will have something for you, no matter what your political predilection. a description of feeling one's own worldview grow and shift.
the book is especially interesting because you get a sense of what it was like to live in dallas and to understand the context in which the assassination of JFK happened. i had been unaware until i read this how many people blamed dallas in general for this event, and how that felt to someone who lived there. also the book provides a broad canvas of the political climate there and of the zeitgeist in the country at the time. i am sure as i read the second half of the book i will be given other insights.
... finished it. a rare thing, a history/political book that will have something for you, no matter what your political predilection. a description of feeling one's own worldview grow and shift.
October 3, 2014
An excellent book through the first half but a bit wearying beyond that point. Overall I’d recommend it, particularly to Baby Boomers born around 1950.
The first 11 chapters were terrific. The writing was very fluid and insightful, and I really liked the author’s blend of personal memoir, generational vibe and historical references.
Starting with Chapter 12 (White Man) the writing took on a dour and whiny style and never returned to its earlier excellence.
This was the reverse of my experience with Going Clear (same author) where the early section on L. Ron Hubbard was very difficult to get through but the book continued to get better all the way to the end.
The first 11 chapters were terrific. The writing was very fluid and insightful, and I really liked the author’s blend of personal memoir, generational vibe and historical references.
Starting with Chapter 12 (White Man) the writing took on a dour and whiny style and never returned to its earlier excellence.
This was the reverse of my experience with Going Clear (same author) where the early section on L. Ron Hubbard was very difficult to get through but the book continued to get better all the way to the end.
December 29, 2013
A thoughtful, well-written memoir/historical non-fiction narrative about Dallas as a source for rebellion and complacency in the 1960s-80s. A must-read for anyone who found themselves chafing against "Big D" in childhood.
October 26, 2016
My time and my life experiences through this author. A must read for all baby boomers!
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