60's The Golden Era
‘It was a golden era.’ Do you agree with this view of the Sixties? Why? Why Not?
Consider three disciplines including history in your answer.
The sixties was historically and culturally a complex period. For some ‘it was a golden era’ yet for others it was a period when the old order of morality, authority and discipline lost its legitimacy. A relatively long stretch of time that claimed to be all about peace, love, idealism, liberation, it was marked by civil rights movements, assassinations and wars. In this essay I shall attempt to discuss three disciplines i.e. both the mainstream and the counterculture of history, religion and art. I shall confine these disciplines in the context of America. Before I continue I shall explain what is meant by the term ‘golden age’. According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, it is ‘a period of great peace, prosperity, and happiness.’ ‘The Reader Digest Universal Dictionary states that 1) it is ‘an untroubled and prosperous era which humankind lived in ideal happiness; 2) a period when a nation reaches its height.”
In terms of the historical aspect, the Sixties cannot simply be analyzed in decades. As such, periodization or ‘chopping up of the past’ into chunks is used for practicality and convenience to maneuver through the extensive period. History of the Sixties is often referred to as the long sixties beginning from 1958. It ended around 1974. It can be further divided into three sub-periods, 1958-1963, 1964-1968, and 1969-1974.
The paranoia about the spread of Communism was a major reason for entering a war with Vietnam. It was basically a civil war, a war America could not win. American television broadcasted relentless bombings against ordinary villagers causing death and destruction along with high casualty rate on the American side. Television transmitted horrific pictures of the war into people’s homes. As a result, people began to question its futility and morality of the war. Opposition grew from many...
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