The Best Non-Fiction Books That Portray America In The 1960s

The 1960s were a time of great change for America, with the Civil Rights Movement, feminism, and other forces coming to the fore to rewrite the way our society was structured. Add in the revolutionary works of music, film, and other art that coincided with large changes culturally as well as a turbulent time in politics, we have one of the most fascinating and important decades of the country’s history.

In some ways it feels not unlike our own times, with many of the same tensions and complexities to be dealt with. It is a period that never ceases to be fascinating to learn about, and there are countless books that depict the era, covering similar themes and trends even while they are on entirely different topics. While it would be impossible to truly narrow down the hundreds of great books on the decade, we have selected four of the finest non-fiction books about the 1960s that are both entertaining to read and educational.

Where Did Our Love Go - The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George

When it comes to the culture of the 1960s, an essential part of it is the music, which was exploding with creativity in that decade. As far is quintessential 1960s music goes, there are two strands that are higher than the rest in importance, and those are “British Invasion” music, which includes the great british rock groups of the era such as the Beatles and Rolling Stones, and soul music, stemming from African-American communities. 

While there is much debate over what the greatest soul music of the era is, it is clear that the most popular and important soul music of the decade came from Motown, the Detroit based record label that truly broke down barriers, sending soul music into the American mainstream and launching some of the biggest artists in history, including Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, and Michael Jackson. This fantastic book by Nelson George shows how the vision of founder Berry Gordy and the talents of numerous black singers, songwriters, musicians, and producers created the sound of young America, and it tells a great story of the 1960s in the process.

Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon

While Motown’s stature commands the respect of all music fans, there are many who feel they were too poppy, slick, and commercial, and for them the real great soul music of the 60s was coming not out of Detroit but out of another independent record label based in Memphis called Stax. Here was music that was more rugged and raw, but still had the mass appeal to sell countless records. Legendary artists such as Isaac Hayes and Otis Redding made their names at Stax, and while less well known than Motown, the music is just as good.

Robert Gordon traces the rise and the fall of Stax, a story that is consistently compelling in its twists and turns. On top of the stories of the music, the artists, and the business side of the company, though, it is also an excellent portrait of the time, given that the label emerge in a segregated Southern state where racism was very much a concrete part of the lives of all of the players in this story. It features a first hand look at the Civil Rights movement, and it also tells the story of a label where black and white musicians were working together, which was highly unusual at the time.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

The Civil Rights movement and all of its offshoots define the 1960s as much as anything else, but another major cultural force of the decades was the hippies, with their psychedelic drug use and free spirited living. The countercultural movement was a shock to the system for America, with vast numbers of young people rejecting the normative structures of American life and going on an altogether different path.

Tracking this movement better than anyone was journalist Tom Wolfe, who follows the lives of Ken Kesey (known for the classic novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”) and his “Merry Pranksters” who traveled around the country in a school bus that was decked out in brightly colored paint. There was plenty of LSD use and many wild adventures, and no book better captures the hippy movement than this does.

Dispatches by Michael Herr

One of the most politically motivating events of the 1960s was the Vietnam War, which spanned around two decades and killed tens of thousands of Americans and wounded hundreds of thousands of others, not including those who returned home with psychological distress. The war, which lacked the moral certainties of the Second World War, disillusioned generations of Americans, and it was a turning point for how the world viewed America and how America viewed itself. 

Michael Herr was a war correspondent covering the war in the late 60s, and this book about his experiences was so emotionally difficult for him to write that he had a nervous breakdown and couldn’t get around to finishing it until 1977. It is often considered to be one of the best works of writing about the war, and it stands as one of the great works of journalism about the 1960s.