Issue 9, Summer 2018

You Say You Want a Revolution How 1968 redefined the world.

The Riots Goin’ On

The civil disturbances of 1968 signaled a nation that threatened to tear itself asunder but, significantly, Ferguson became a harbinger for a movement against state violence and a conversation about policing because it had become more militarized, not only because it could be brutal or highly insensitive in dealing with African Americans.

Crazy Films Define a Time of Upheaval

It was not the box office hits, the Oscar-winners, or even the overtly druggy cinematic curios of 1968 that had the clearest sense of where the Age of Aquarius might be heading. Rather, it was the smaller American and British horror features—most of them overlooked today—that seemed to discern the looming end of the Revolution.

Revisionism as a Substitute for Victory

Revisionists have been making their case that the Vietnam War was winnable ever since Lyndon Johnson abandoned hope of a decisive American victory in the spring of 1968. Far more striking, however, is that even in the early 21sth century the idea that the United States stole defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam thrives as never before.

Protest as Sport

The through line for a collision between national anthem, sports, and protest that has persisted from 1968’s black-gloved fists in the air to #TakeAKnee is not as straight as you might believe.

South of Suez

When Great Britain announced in January 1968 its military withdrawal from colonial holdings bracketing the Indian Ocean, it announced an era of reckoning in which colonial legacy and Islamically-oriented political parties vied for power across the Middle East. Today, Sudan and Yemen remain salient examples of that era’s lasting effects.