A Hard Rain

America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost

De: Frye Gaillard

Narrado por: Chris Abernathy

"There are many different ways to remember the sixties," Frye Gaillard writes, "and this is mine. As future generations debate the meaning of the decade, I hope to offer a sense of how it felt to have lived it. A Hard Rain is one writer's reconstruction and remembrance of a transcendent era-one that, for better or worse, lives with us still."

With A Hard Rain, Gaillard gives us a deeply personal history, bringing his keen storyteller's eye to this pivotal time in American life. He explores the competing story arcs of tragedy and hope through the political and social movements of the times: civil rights, black power, women's liberation, the war in Vietnam, and the protests and movements against it.

Gaillard also examines the cultural manifestations of change in the era-music, literature, art, religion, and science-and so we meet not only the Brothers Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, but also Gloria Steinem, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Harper Lee, Mister Rogers, Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Andy Warhol, Billy Graham, Thomas Merton, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Angela Davis, Barry Goldwater, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Berrigan Brothers. As Gaillard remembers these influential people, he weaves together a compelling story about an iconic American decade of change, conflict, and progress.

©2018 Frye Gaillard (P)2024 Tantor

A Decade of Great Change and Tragedy

This is a masterful tribute to the 1960s. It is vast in scope, but captures a lot of essential cultural themes as well as the political landscape of the era.

I appreciated the attention paid to the arts- music and literature played an important part in the cultural milieu of 1960s America. The chapter on Janis Joplin/Linda Ronstadt showed the changing roles of women in the decade. The chapter on Mr Rogers was interesting and touching, showing the importance of friendship, hope, and educating children.

The political sections capture the racial turmoil during the decade, but also the progress that was made. Black thought leaders like Stokely Carmichael (whom the author met at Vanderbilt University), Malcom X, and Martin Luther King were covered extensively.

And, of course, the Kennedy clan was covered, and the tragedies that befell the family and America at the time. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were covered extensively, as well. David Halberstram and Larry Sabato cover the Kennedy years best, but this book gives a great overview of the politics of the 60s, and the presidents of this era.

I can’t recommend this book enough. The narrator, writing, history, and feel of the era shines through. As someone who was born in the late 80s, I’ve always been interested in the 60s era. So much changed, but so much stayed the same.

The best gift this decade gave to subsequent generations was an openness to change, and the power of hope. Our world is better now that we are more integrated as a people, and that the civil rights era offered legal protections to Americans that were overlooked for too long.