A captivating debut novel for readers of Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You and Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep - The Most Dangerous Place on Earth unleashes an unforgettable cast of characters into a realm known for its cruelty and peril- the American high school.
A riveting oral history of American society in the turbulent years of the Vietnam War as told by the people in the thick of it, including Jane Fonda, Daniel Ellsberg, Bill Ayers, and many more.The electrifying story of the turbulent year when the sixties ended and America teetered on the edge of revolutionNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCHAs the 1960s drew to a close, the United States was coming apart at the seams. From August 1969 to August 1970, the nation witnessed nine thousand protests and eighty-four acts of arson or bombings at schools across the country. It was the year of the My Lai massacre investigation, the Cambodia invasion, Woodstock, and the Moratorium to End the War. The American death toll in Vietnam was approaching fifty thousand, and the ascendant counterculture was challenging nearly every aspect of American society. Witness to the Revolution, Clara Bingham's unique oral history of that tumultuous time, unveils anew that moment when America careened to the brink of a civil war at home, as it fought a long, futile war abroad.Woven together from one hundred original interviews, Witness to the Revolution provides a firsthand narrative of that period of upheaval in the words of those closest to the action-the activists, organizers, radicals, and resisters who manned the barricades of what Students for a Democratic Society leader Tom Hayden called "the Great Refusal."We meet Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn of the Weather Underground; Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department employee who released the Pentagon Papers; feminist theorist Robin Morgan; actor and activist Jane Fonda; and many others whose powerful personal stories capture the essence of an era. We witness how the killing of four students at Kent State turned a straitlaced social worker into a hippie, how the civil rights movement gave birth to the women's movement, and how opposition to the war in Vietnam turned college students into prisoners, veterans into peace marchers, and intellectuals into bombers.With lessons that can be applied to our time, Witness to the Revolution is more than just a record of the death throes of the Age of Aquarius. Today, when America is once again enmeshed in racial turmoil, extended wars overseas, and distrust of the government, the insights contained in this book are more relevant than ever.Praise for Witness to the Revolution"Especially for younger generations who didn't live through it,Witness to the Revolutionis a valuable and entertaining primer on a moment in American history the likes of which we may never see again."-Bryan Burrough,The Wall Street Journal" One of the best paperbacks of 2017 so far . . . The book is a rich tapestry of a volatile period in American history."-Time"A gripping oral history of the centrifugal social forces tearing America apart at the end of the '60s . . . This is rousing reportage from the front lines of US history."-O- The Oprah Magazine"The familiar voices and the unfamiliar ones are woven together with documents to make this a surprisingly powerful and moving book."-New York Times Book Review" An Enthralling and brilliant chronology of the period between August 1969 and September 1970."-Buffalo News" Bingham captures the essence of these fourteen months through the words of movement organizers, vets, students, draft resisters, journalists, musicians, government agents, writers, and others. . . . This oral history will enable readers to see that era in a new light and with fresh sympathy for the motivations of those involved. While Bingham's is one of many retrospective looks at that period, it is one of the most immediate and personal."-Booklist
“"In her excellent oral history of the tumultuous events of 1969 and 1970, . . . [Clara Bingham] does a fine job conjuring the sense of a looming apocalypse. . . . It''s surprising to be reminded how many of the decade''s signature events occurred in a single year. Woodstock. The trial of the Chicago Eight. The My Lai massacre. The first efforts to publish the ''Pentagon Papers.'' Altamont. The rise of the Weather Underground. The invasion of Cambodia. Kent State. The bombing of the Army Math Research Center in Madison, Wis. Witness to the Revolution offers an impressive list of actual witnesses to these events and more, including some sharp contextual asides explaining the rise of the antiwar movement and the fallout from its messy end. . . . Especially for younger generations who didn''t live through it, Witness to the Revolution is a valuable and entertaining primer on a moment in American history the likes of which we may never see again." --Bryan Burrough, The Wall Street Journal”
“In her excellent oral history of the tumultuous events of 1969 and 1970, . . . [Clara Bingham] does a fine job conjuring the sense of a looming apocalypse. . . . It’s surprising to be reminded how many of the decade’s signature events occurred in a single year. Woodstock. The trial of the Chicago Eight. The My Lai massacre. The first efforts to publish the ‘Pentagon Papers.’ Altamont. The rise of the Weather Underground. The invasion of Cambodia. Kent State. The bombing of the Army Math Research Center in Madison, Wis. Witness to the Revolution offers an impressive list of actual witnesses to these events and more, including some sharp contextual asides explaining the rise of the antiwar movement and the fallout from its messy end. . . . Especially for younger generations who didn’t live through it, Witness to the Revolution is a valuable and entertaining primer on a moment in American history the likes of which we may never see again.”—Bryan Burrough, The Wall Street Journal
“A gripping oral history of the centrifugal social forces tearing America apart at the end of the ’60s . . . This is rousing reportage from the front lines of US history.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“[One of the] best paperbacks of 2017 so far . . . The book is a rich tapestry of a volatile period in American history.”—Time
“[An] Enthralling and brilliant chronology of the period between August 1969 and September 1970.”—Buffalo News
“The familiar voices and the unfamiliar ones are woven together with documents to make this a surprisingly powerful and moving book.”—New York Times Book Review
“[Bingham] captures the essence of these fourteen months through the words of movement organizers, vets, students, draft resisters, journalists, musicians, government agents, writers, and others. . . . This oral history will enable readers to see that era in a new light and with fresh sympathy for the motivations of those involved. While Bingham’s is one of many retrospective looks at that period, it is one of the most immediate and personal.”—Booklist
“An engrossing oral history of the youth rebellion of the 1960s . . . [A] remarkable account of the anti-war movement . . . There are revealing stories about Weathermen on the lam, government sabotage and surveillance, courtroom theatrics, police riots, President Richard Nixon’s late-night meeting with protesters at the Lincoln Memorial, the Pentagon Papers, and the incessant organizing behind events that ‘would profoundly and permanently change the nation.’ The cast is a who’s who of the ’60s: Daniel Ellsberg, Jane Fonda, Julius Lester, and others, from undercover FBI agents to rock musicians, most of whom offer sharp insights into the period. . . . People like Bingham (b. 1963), who ‘missed the party,’ may be astonished by aspects of this tumultuous story. Baby boomers will find themselves infuriated once again by vivid accounts of the My Lai massacre, the Kent State and Jackson State shootings, and other tumultuous events.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Witness to the Revolution is vivid, compelling, and addictively readable. Clara Bingham has captured the lightning of the 1960s in a jar, where it blows the reader’s socks off. Whether you lived through this period or want to know what you missed, this is a popular history everyone should read.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money
“For those who ‘missed the sixties’ (like most of us, whether demographically or spiritually), this vital book goes a long way toward explaining the original wound that festers in our ‘culture wars’ still. Witness to the Revolution is to the counterculture what Howell Raines’s My Soul Is Rested is to the civil rights movement, a pageant of humanness that induces throat-clogging wonder at then and now.”—Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Carry Me Home
“At once reliving and reflecting on the end of the 1960s, the voices in Witness to the Revolution provide a compelling history and an authentic testimony of a turbulent time. As we live through a new moment of political turmoil, it’s critical that we revisit an era when arguments over politics and culture were palpable, urgent, and revolutionary. Clara Bingham takes us there.”—Gay Talese, author of A Writer’s Life
“The cities and campuses were blowing up, the races and generations were at war, sex, drugs, and violence gripped our young. How the hell did that happen? Clara Bingham, a gifted reporter with a great sense of story, tells us in this moving, funny, horrifying, clarifying book. This is the best sixties book since Edie.”—Evan Thomas, author of Being Nixon
“In her compelling and dramatic oral history of that fleeting moment when America seemed to be a nation on the brink, Clara Bingham directs the choir of Woodstock Nation—an artfully composed collection of voices of those who went ‘up the country’ or on a ‘long strange trip,’ those sent off to Southeast Asia and others who stayed home and were driven mad by the Vietnam War. Singing a song of would-be revolution, this collection of antiwar veterans, Black Panthers, radicals, rock stars, and others who let their freak flags fly, not to mention a few Nixon intimates and fellow travelers, defies the notion that if you remember it, you weren’t there. Vivid, vibrant, and crackling with energy, Witness to the Revolution takes you to the exact spot where the wave of the sixties, the Movement, and the Age of Aquarius crested. You can almost smell the tear gas.”—Nick Turse, author of Kill Anything That Moves
“Witness to the Revolution is a remarkable oral history, deftly weaving together vivid characters, traumatic events, and fractious movements. As we stand again as witnesses to a vertiginous period of change and challenge, Bingham’s book is powerfully relevant. Above all, it is a vibrant and critical guide to a time that changed our nation forever.”—Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation
Clara Bingham is the author of Class Action- The Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law (with Laura Leedy Gansler) and Women on the Hill- Challenging the Culture of Congress. She is a former Newsweek White House correspondent, and her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Talk, The Washington Monthly, Ms., and other publications. Bingham produced the 2011 documentary The Last Mountain. She lives in Manhattan and Brooklyn with her husband, three children, and three stepchildren.
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