New Proposal

History Extension Proposal- The Renaissance of The 60s

The 1960s were an iconic era of revolutionary change and rapid progress. Throughout this decade, an explosive counter-culture was established amidst a social-revolution. Vibrant, new ideas of the era were exuberantly expressed in sixties art, music and literature. The libertine, flamboyant attitudes of the decade were epitomised by rampant recreational drug use and casual sex. This dramatic change in social morale was accompanied by the commencement of the Vietnam War and the ensuing Anti-war movement. Rapid technological development culminated in the US/USSR space race. The fast-paced nature of the sixties was emphasised by a succession of high-profile assassinations, adding to the frantic chaos of the age. Consequently, a sense of ‘change’ resonated throughout the period and created the historical image of the revolutionary ‘Swinging Sixties’.

Through my history project I hope to explore this culturally dynamic epoch and divulge the various reasons historians attribute to the astounding rate of change. Additionally, I hope to discover the ideologies of the historians in question in order to establish how it affects their history.

Focus questions-

• What impact do historians believe music/literature/arts had on society in the sixties? Why did this differ from other decades? Was this responsible for the unparalleled rapidity of change in the sixties?

• According to historians, what affect did recreational drug use have on the sixties? How did this affect the way society expressed themselves and ensuing events? Was rampant drug use the driving force behind the revolution of the sixties?

• Are the sixties correctly memorialised as the era of “sex, drugs and rock and roll” or is this simply a figment of our collective imaginations?

• How do historians believe the Vietnam War affected society in the sixties? Why did this war instigate such revolutionary opposition? How did the exposure to images of war affect society? Did this instigate a counter-culture?

• What were the prominent ideologies influencing the historians of the subsequent decades? Did this affect the way they wrote their history?

• Were the sixties really a period of unparalleled change, rapid revolution and utter chaos or did the historians writing about this decade represent it in a different manner to previous historians, thereby warping it into a frantic myth?

• Was the turmoil of the sixties simply extinguished by the arrival of the seventies? If this is not so, why are the sixties represented as intrinsically different to all other decades?

Available resources-

• The Sixties- Eoin Camron
• The 1960s- Timothy Maga
• American culture in the 1960s- Sharon Monteith
• Sixties- Terry H. Anderson
• The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade- Gerard J. DeGroot.
• The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s (Columbia Guides to American History and Cultures)- David Farber and Beth Bailey
• The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s- David Farber
• The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage- Todd Gitlin
• The 1960s: American Popular Culture Through History- Edward J. Rielly