The Sixties

Book excerpt: For those who did not live through the experience of the Sixties, it is often difficult to comprehend this tumultuous period. Even those who lived though the era and have studied the Sixties have wrestled with its deeper meaning. While the Sixties ultimate "meaning" remains elusive, there can be no doubt that the period's transformative effect upon Canadians - culturally, politically, and economically - was immense. From arts and architecture to politics and protest, the decade has attained near-mythical status, leaving an undeniable influence on virtually every aspect of Canadian life. The images, sounds, and tastes of the decade remain an indelible part of our own twenty-first-century experience, yet for a decade that remains so well defined within the public memory, the Sixties left behind an ambiguous historic legacy for those who study the period. Taking a multidisciplinary approach that includes history, architecture, art, political science and journalism, this volume provides fresh new perspectives on Canada's loudest, liveliest, and most debated period. Four decades after Canada's own Expo 67 "summer of love", this timely book explores issues from dope, de Gaulle, and driver education, to Trudeau, Vietnam, and Africville, all thought the colourful kaleidoscope of the Sixties..