A review by jordanjones
Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America by Philip Jenkins

3.0

This book was clearly written, and well researched. It was occasionally witty, but what I appreciated most about it was the journalist's independence, where Jenkins states what people on the left were saying, and what people on the right were saying, without judging either, even though he might state an agreement with one and a disagreement with another point of view. His coverage of the paranoia around everything that could befall children, and how the affect on children colored so many scares from child abuse, to drugs, to pornography, to tobacco, was insightful. It's something that everyone who lived through this period in America will recognize, but might not have put into the same patter Jenkins demonstrates.

A well constructed gloss of the history, with occasional nods to artistic and literary trends.