Making Sense Of The Sixties

Abstract

Twenty years ago, when I taught a seminar on the 1920s, the so-called Jazz Age, many of the students I interviewed for admission said the decade was their favorite one. Current undergraduates are more likely to name the 1960s. The PBS videocassette production, Making Sense of the Sixties, is an attempt to recreate this tumultuous period for a post-60s generation and to explain it in analytical and conceptual terms. The series generally succeeds, but does have a number of flaws and limitations.