The Last Innocent Year - by Jon Margolis (Paperback)

About the Book

The chief national political correspondent at the "Chicago Tribune" for 16 years chronicles the historical events of 1964, weaving a narrative populated by some of the most dynamic figures of this century, from Robert Kennedy to Timothy Leary, from J. Edgar Hoover to Martin Luther King, Jr. Margolis has drawn an unforgettable portrait of the year that changed America forever. 16-page photo insert.

Book Synopsis

The year was 1964, John Kennedy was dead and the country was reeling from the aftermath of his assasination. The Warren Commission was sifting evidence. Lyndon Johnson was beginning to tear down Camelot to build the Great Society. Young men started burning draft cards. Rioting African Americans burned neighborhoods. The "conflict" in Vietnam was escalating and Jackie Kennedy was fast on her way to becoming an icon of dignified widowhood. The year 1964 was when the Beatles crossed the pond, Elizabeth Taylor dumped Eddie Fisher for Richard Burton, and the Beverly Hillbillies was all the rage on television. In The Last Innocent Year, Jon Margolis weaves a narrative populated by some of the most dynamic figures of this century, from Robert Kennedy to Timothy Leary, from J. Edgar Hoover to Martin Luther King Jr. The result is a compelling chronicle of the events of 1964, the year that marked a watershed in American history.

Review Quotes

""The Last Innocent Year is fun to read. Margolis writes with wit and is a great storyteller...At the end of the 20th Century, Jon Margolis' fine book on the year 1964 reminds us how far we have come as a nation and how uneasy the journey has been." --"The Chicago Tribune(front page) "Margolis weaves all this...into an illuminating and suspenseful account."--"The Washington Post BookWorld "A lively trip through 1964, both its politics and culture. His anecdotal narratives plus commentary are reminiscent of Theodore White's making-of the-president books, and he has added the sharp shapshot vignettes that recall John Dos Passos."--"The Washington Times "Margolis' book is more than a good read; it is a reminder to those who lived through that year -- and a lesson to those who didn't -- of where so much of contemporary American politics and society began." --David Broder, "The Washington Post "Full of insights...he has conveyed with a master storyteller's skill the impact of the year when America experienced not the loss of optimism, exactly, but the loss of the certainty that optimism was the American norm."--Howard Kissel, "The New York Daily News "Margolis uses short, insightful vignettes to masterfully re-create the mood and substance of a pivotal year. For those of us who were there, it is a wonderful memory-jogging book. For the younger generation, it is an entertaining history lesson -- sort of like 'Forrest Gump' without the soundtrack."--"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "With the skill of a detective, Jon Margolis has revisited the scene of a pivotal year in American social and political history and with ironic wit and keen insight what we have become as a people and nation andwhy."--Bill Kovach, Curator, Neiman Foundation, Harvard "Jon Margolis is as great at history as he was at reporting. "The Last Innocent Year makes it easier to understand but painful to remember how events in 1964 conspired to cast a pall on our politics and our culture that persists even today." --Sandur Vanocur, "The History Channel "Margolis takes readers on an entertaining flashback to 1964 in a breezily well-written, episodically structured book that reads so much like a good PBS documentary that readers will be creating soundtracks in their own minds."--"Publishers Weekly(starred review) "A well-written, often colorful work...Like Barbara Tuchman and other deft popular historians, Margolis is a master of the revealing anecdote and pithy summary."--"Kirkus Reviews