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American Political Life in the 1960's: Change, Recurrence, and Revolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
When I was an undergraduate I could never understand the reluctance of a historian to analyze in print the happenings of the most recent 20 years. To my mind that reluctance was best exercised with respect to events and societies thousands of years ago. For those ancient societies we might have fragments, clues, a few sketchy outlines. But for the years immediately preceding our own we had literally mountains of material in newspapers, books, periodicals, and of course our own personal memories and on the spot analyses. After reflecting back on my own assessment of things in that year, the spring of 1963, in which I was literally a sophomore, I understand more fully the reluctance of the historian. In understanding the immediate past we are implicitly claiming to understand the present and the future. Almost none of my perspectives about the future, based on my “understanding” of the then recent past, turned out to be correct even in broad outline.
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- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1972
References
1 Key, V. O. Jr, Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups (3rd ed., New York: Crowell, 1964), p. 10Google Scholar.
2 Ibid.
3 Phillips, Kevin, The Emerging Republican Majority (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969), pp. 25–42Google Scholar.
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