The Times They Were a-Changin'
1964, the Year the Sixties Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn
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Narrated by:
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David de Vries
About this listen
An award-winning historian on the transformative year in the sixties that continues to reverberate in our lives and politics—for fans of Heather Cox Richardson.
If 1968 marked a turning point in a pivotal decade, 1964—or rather, the long 1964, from JFK’s assassination in November 1963 to mid-1965—was the time when the sixties truly arrived. It was then that the United States began a radical shift toward a much more inclusive definition of “American,” with a greater degree of equality and a government actively involved in social and economic improvement.
It was a radical shift accompanied by a cultural revolution. The same month Bob Dylan released his iconic ballad “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced his War on Poverty. Spurred by the civil rights movement and a generation pushing for change, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act were passed during this period. This was a time of competing definitions of freedom. Freedom from racism, freedom from poverty. White youth sought freedoms they associated with black culture, captured imperfectly in the phrase “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.” Along with freedom from racist oppression, black Americans sought the opportunities associated with the white middle class: “white freedom.” Women challenged rigid gender roles. And in response to these freedoms, the changing mores, and youth culture, the contrary impulse found political expression in such figures as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, proponents of what was presented as freedom from government interference. Meanwhile, a nonevent in the Tonkin Gulf would accelerate the nation's plunge into the Vietnam tragedy.
In narrating 1964’s moment of reckoning, when American identity began to be reimagined, McElvaine ties those past battles to their legacy today. Throughout, he captures the changing consciousness of the period through its vibrant music, film, literature, and personalities.
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Critic reviews
“Illuminating, provocative, and entertaining . . . The book shines when serving as a reminder of why the public remains infatuated with the decade. The 1960s, McElvaine explains, ‘still define the political, social, cultural, and economic battle lines along which Americans contend today.’”—Washington Post
“The Times They Were a-Changin’ is a riveting book on the progressive advances that were achieved in 'the Long 1964.' McElvaine presents vivid details and unapologetic truths that can help to thwart rightwing radicals’ plans to annihilate the progress we have made toward equality. This eye-opening book makes clear the reasons society must study past mistakes to prevent them from reoccurring.”—Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman, House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on U.S. Capitol
"In a lively, lucid, and fast-paced narrative, Robert McElvaine summons the past to illuminate today’s existential threats to democracy—and the resources that might help us surmount them. In the hands of this gifted storyteller, 1964 becomes a prism through which to see the present with fresh eyes, just in time to save the future."—Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
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- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Stuart Stevens spent decades electing Republicans at every level, from presidents to senators to local officials. He knows the GOP as intimately as anyone in America, and in this new book he offers a devastating portrait of a party that has lost its moral and political compass. This is not a book about how Donald J. Trump hijacked the Republican Party and changed it into something else.
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A party gone astray
- By Devin on 08-07-20
By: Stuart Stevens
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Wingnuts
- How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America
- By: John P. Avlon, Tina Brown - foreword
- Narrated by: John P. Avlon, Tina Brown (foreword)
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Whats a wingnut? A wingnut is someone on the far-right or far-left wing of the political spectrum professional partisans, unhinged activists, and paranoid conspiracy theorists. Barack Obama campaigned as an antidote to the politics of polarization, promising to transcend the old divides of left and right, black and white, red states and blue. But in the first year of his presidency, he is presiding over an eruption of hate and hyper-partisanship that threatens to mock the promise upon which he was elected.
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Disturbingly disappointing
- By Steven on 02-20-10
By: John P. Avlon, and others
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The Soul of America
- The Battle for Our Better Angels
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Jon Meacham
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and LBJ, and illuminating the courage of influential citizen activists and civil rights pioneers, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. Each of these dramatic hours have been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back.
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Thanks! I needed this!
- By Kindle Customer on 05-29-18
By: Jon Meacham
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Into the Bright Sunshine
- Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Pivotal Moments in American History Series)
- By: Samuel G. Freedman
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president—the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate—but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium.
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Narrator bungles pronunciations
- By ARV on 09-23-23
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Stop Mass Hysteria
- America's Insanity from the Salem Witch Trials to the Trump Witch Hunt
- By: Michael Savage
- Narrated by: Barry Baer
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In his new audiobook, Stop Mass Hysteria, number one New York Times best-selling author Michael Savage calls out the mass hysteria mongers and their methods and shows Americans that we must look to history to understand the present and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
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Common sense in a country that is trying not to
- By Mike on 10-09-18
By: Michael Savage
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Prejudential
- Black America and the Presidents
- By: Margaret Kimberley
- Narrated by: Margaret Kimberley
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Prejudential is a concise, authoritative exploration of America’s relationship with race and Black Americans through the lens of the presidents who have been elected to represent all of its people.
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Some things never change
- By jeffrey W on 12-30-22
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His Truth Is Marching On
- John Lewis and the Power of Hope
- By: Jon Meacham, John Lewis - afterword
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Jon Meacham
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime US congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Soul of America.
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Absolutely remarkable!
- By Janie on 08-30-20
By: Jon Meacham, and others
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Stayin' Alive
- The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class
- By: Jefferson R. Cowie
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A wide-ranging cultural and political history that will forever redefine a misunderstood decade, Stayin' Alive is prize-winning historian Jefferson Cowie's remarkable account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the 1970s. In this edgy and incisive book, Cowie, with "an ear for the power and poetry of vernacular speech" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), reveals America's fascinating path from rising incomes and optimism of the New Deal to the widening economic inequalities and dampened expectations of the present.
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Couldn’t get past “rank and file”
- By A. Arena on 10-13-21
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1948
- Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year That Transformed America
- By: David Pietrusza
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 18 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning historian David Pietrusza unpacks the most ingloriously iconic headline in the history of presidential elections - DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN - to reveal the 1948 campaign's backstage events and recount the down-to-the-wire brawl fought against the background of an erupting Cold War, the Berlin Airlift, the birth of Israel, and a post-war America facing exploding storms over civil rights and domestic communism.
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1948 Presidential election retold by Truman hater
- By The Fabulous GT on 01-21-19
By: David Pietrusza
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Reaganland
- America's Right Turn 1976-1980
- By: Rick Perlstein
- Narrated by: Samantha Desz, Jonathan Todd Ross, Jacques Roy, and others
- Length: 45 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga's final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement. In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford's defeat, too old to make another run.
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This Book is Censored by Audible
- By Nathan D. Backlund on 09-07-20
By: Rick Perlstein
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Hatemonger
- Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda
- By: Jean Guerrero
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Stephen Miller is one of the most influential advisors in the White House. He has crafted Donald Trump’s speeches, designed immigration policies that ban Muslims and separate families, and outlasted such Trump stalwarts as Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions. But he’s remained an enigma. Until now. Emmy- and PEN-winning investigative journalist and author Jean Guerrero charts the 34-year-old’s astonishing rise to power, drawing from more than 100 interviews with his family, friends, adversaries, and government officials.
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Deplorable on purpose
- By M. Alice Fisher on 08-15-20
By: Jean Guerrero
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The Black History of the White House
- By: Clarence Lusane
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The Black History of the White House presents the untold history, racial politics, and shifting significance of the White House as experienced by African Americans, from the generations of enslaved people who helped to build it or were forced to work there to its first black first family, the Obamas.
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From Quarries to the Oval Office - Unforgettable
- By Susie on 07-14-16
By: Clarence Lusane
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Dewey Defeats Truman
- The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul
- By: A. J. Baime
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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From the New York Times best-selling author of The Accidental President comes the thrilling story of the 1948 presidential election, one of the greatest election stories of all time, as Truman mounted a history-making comeback and staked a claim for a new course for America.
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Excellent account of the 1948 election
- By A. Crystal on 07-15-20
By: A. J. Baime
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The Sword and the Shield
- The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
- By: Peniel E. Joseph
- Narrated by: Zeno Robinson
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent contrasting ideals. The struggle for Black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives.
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Helpful contribution to civil rights history.
- By Adam Shields on 05-13-20
By: Peniel E. Joseph
What listeners say about The Times They Were a-Changin'
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- Buretto
- 01-13-23
The line it was drawn, the curse it was cast...
Using the Bob Dylan album and song which is paraphrased in the title as his through line, the author takes the listener on an enjoyable and edifying ride through the greater 1964, ranging roughly from the assassination of JFK in November 1963 through the summer of 1965 and the Voting Rights Act. Much like books written about another important year of the decade, 1968, it weaves together many different stories to reveal a tapestry of great significance.
I think the greatest achievement of the book is the deftness with which the complexity of LBJ is handled. Always professional and objective, it doesn't shy away from open adulation of the man's clear virtues, nor does it pull any punches in his shortcomings and catastrophic failures. Too easily the man is dismissed as a thuggish Texas politico and coup beneficiary by conspiracy theorists, or the fountainhead of government overreach by conservative zealots, or the spearhead of the American debacle in Vietnam, by progressives. Rarely is his civil rights works mentioned any more. Truth is the first two groups listed above don't view civil rights as particularly important, and the last group generally only sees it as mildly countering his foreign policy negatives. But the truth is laid out in this book, LBJ was demonstrably more progressive, particularly on race and socio-economic issues, than JFK ever was. We can only speculate on what a longer JFK presidency would have brought, or what RFK might have shown (admittedly more progressive by '68, than his brother had been). But LBJ did produce significant advancement in civil rights legislation (sadly at risk nearly 60 years later by the evil spawn of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan). I appreciate the nuance of presentation of LBJ's highly complex, mixed legacy.
The book also delves into pop culture, but not without a few wobbles. Its goal is to give an overview of the zeitgeist of 1964, and that has to include the British music invasion that year, rightfully broken down into two waves. The first wave, headed by the Beatles, bringing simple, innocuous melodies and even simpler, jejune lyricism for a country still grieving over its fallen leader (fortunately the group would rise above boyband status with the help of Dylan's influence on their lyrics). Then secondly, and arguably more revolutionary, the second with the Rolling Stones, bringing back the rhythm and blues and pure blues sounds of African Americans back to the country of its birth, and to its white inhabitants. This is another theme that runs through the book, the parallel of bringing white freedom to Blacks and Black freedom to whites (if anyone wonders why Black is capitalized and white isn't, read James Baldwin). It's an interesting contrast and works reasonably well overall. The comparison of the Beatles and Stones is a bit simplistic, and generally finds different ways to say the same thing, the Beatles wanted to hold the girl's hand, the Stones wanted to <ahem> do more.
Overall the book was quite entertaining. As mentioned, LBJ is the first among equal figures in this story. But significant historical figures like Fannie Lou Hamer, Barry Goldwater, and the trio of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, all play a part. And it's a case when the book Subtitle is right on the mark, not at all hyperbole. The battle lines were definitely drawn in 1964. Evidenced by the fact, highlighted in the book, that Ronald Reagan, heir to the Goldwater conservative movement, chose Neshoba County, site of the killing of Chaney, Goodman and Scherner, to campaign for president in 1980, citing a commitment to states rights. This only 16 years after those three civil rights workers lost their lives trying to help bring racial justice to Mississippi. And the attack is still going on from the right to this day. It's kind of embarrassing that this book of history is still so relevant today. Highly recommend.
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