The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America

by Roger Kimball

Book Overview

In The Long March, Roger Kimball, the author of Tenured Radicals, shows how the cultural revolution of the 1960s and '70s took hold in America, lodging in our hearts and minds, and affecting our... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1893554090
• ISBN13: 9781893554092
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Length: 326 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

The Greatest Book I've Ever Read.

In my entire life, this is the only book that I've read three times. Upon each perusal it becomes more endearing. The Long March is the most powerful indict of the 1960s and the counterculture that has ever been written. More than any other publication, it is capable of convincing moderates of the need to CONSERVE America and our western tradition as well. Although, I am politically of the same bend as Mr. Kimball, I must admit that this book was not a simple sermon to the parishioners. In my youth, I idolized the beat poets but only knew the true story of their lives after reading his second chapter. The same is true of Marcuse, whose Eros and Civilization along with One-Dimensional Man I devoured and appreciated years ago. The Long March depicts the full story of the way in which our society was softened up by the likes of Brown, Reich, and Goodman to allow it to blossom into the permanent immaturity of the sixties. An immaturity and a selfishness that still binds us. The pseudo-compassionate hippies brought us multiculturalism and political correctness and currently are the cause of 18 year olds mortgaging their futures by borrowing fortunes in exchange for a Philistine's college education. As a cultural commentator, Kimball is resolute, spirited, witty, and as observant as an eagle peering down from Mount Rushmore. This is, quite simply, the finest and most important work whose spine I ever cracked.

Intellectual Clarity

Roger Kimball's indictment of Mailer, Sontag, and other gurus of the Sixties is powerful; indeed, inarguable. How can anyone answer Mr. Kimball's contention that our culture is awash in sewage; that the source of that sewage was the cultural revolution of the 1960s; and that Mailer and others of his ilk facilitated the toxic flow? In my opinion, no one can -- at least not effectively or with honesty.Erudite, and well-written, researched, reasoned, and argued, there is little with which to find fault. I must say, though, that I don't fully agree with Mr. Kimball's contention that traditional values "are rooted deeply in a God-fearing Protestant ethic...." Perhaps. I would argue, however, that mainstream Protestantism has been absolutely corrupted by secularism, and that Christian Fundamentalism is intellectually and theologically hopeless. It is, rather, the Catholic Church that has been the most standfast moral bastion, which is why she is perceived as the last formidable foe by the extreme Left. I congratulate Mr. Kimball on a worthy effort. But is he not wasting his time? Who reads him, Bork, Buchanan, except for those who already agree with them? Not many. And that is a tragedy, for I suspect that there is little time remaining.

Farce Repeating Itself as Tragedy

Roger Kimball has squelched through the reeking, gummy, sunless swamps of Sixties Thought so that those of us with less patience and fortitude might be spared the effort. I remember encountering most of these superannuated juvenile delinquent windbags, ranting, panting, prose- killing German professors and other long-marchers in my youth. Although it seemed both impossible and pointless to read any of them through to the end, I have read enough to assert with confidence that Kimball presents his readers with an accurate account of their works. In doing this he has performed a valuable service, and performed it with clarity, precision, and wit. Never mind that the scribblings of these critters have long since lost their vogue. This book makes clear the source of the ideas which have filled the vacuum caused by the utter collapse of 1950s liberalism and it also sheds light on the confusion and fatuity of the American Intellectual Establishment. This Establishment now finds it convenient to shrug off Kimball's subjects as mere period figures while avoiding any explanation of their previous celebrity. How, for example, to explain the New Yorker's series on Charles Reich's The Greening of America?-a work with less durability, rationality, or merit than bell-bottom jeans. Yet, they were all celebrated for a space and the curious can confirm this with very little research.Kimball's conviction that American society is like a rudderless ship largely as a consequence of the cultural nihilism championed by the long-marchers forms the context of his work. Those of us enjoying the country's present prosperity and international predominance (and I admit to being a beneficiary) should give some thought to the simile. A rudderless ship may be surging with power, free of leaks, and loaded with fully functioning mechanical amenities, but it faces a problematic future. In the meantime the ship's band is a pain in the ear.

Now I Know

Now I know why our schools, colleges, and moral society are in decay. Roger Kimball's The Long March is a tour de force of the factors responsible for this decline. He pieces together the disparate personalities who were deified at the time as purveyors of a new kind of freedom--freedom without responsibility. What they wrought was a society without standards. "Anything Goes" is their motto but woe to the person who questions the results of this kind of lifestyle. Kimball documents their demand for tolerance of all kinds of malordorous behavior yet they are completely intolerant of any criticism. The results are evident throughout our culture. No other book has shown the sources of this decline with such wit and intelligence. The Long March is essential reading for anyone who cares about preserving American culture.