Diane J. Purvis's memoir offers a unique view from the Los Angeles County suburbs as she was coming of age during the era of civil rights activism, the women's movement, and Vietnam anti-war movement. More than Flower Power recalls the youthful energy that surged in the 1960s as political and cultural tensions rose to the surface. Her parents, Midwest transplants to California, sought the postwar American dream and went from pinching pennies to living in upper middle-class suburbs, which were imbued with rigid social and political codes. Purvis rejected this conservative bias while attending racially integrated schools and witnessing the dichotomy between suburban and inner-city students, motivating her to embrace social justice. Purvis and her peers were influenced by images of the Vietnam War and political protests they saw on television and the music they heard on their transistor radios, two emerging technologies that shaped popular perceptions during this tumultuous decade.
Purvis was possessed by the desire to make a difference even though inroads to social and political equality looked impossible in the face of America's cultural consensus and conformism of the era. Through the lens of one person's experience, More than Flower Power offers an intimate portrait of a West Coast generation's optimism, idealism, and transformative influence on American culture and society.
Arvustused
"The 1960s remain a critical decade for understanding contemporary America, so hard, honest looks at what was happening then and how it prefigures our current political space are welcome. More than Flower Power charts the influence of that time on adolescents who were watching from a distance yet absorbing the implications of this new order."Robert Aquinas McNally, author of Cast Out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness
"The 1960s is a decade that has been distorted and maligned, and we need more than a few booksfrom different points of viewthat set the record straight. Diane Purvis lived through the era and her insights are valuable."Margaret Randall, author of I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary and More Than Things
List of Illustrations
Preface
Chapter OneMe and Tonto
Chapter TwoEducation Demands Silence
Chapter ThreeLearning Wo-He-Lo
Chapter FourHere, There, and Everywhere
Chapter FiveHeard It Through the Grapevine
Chapter SixMoguls, Missiles, and Messiahs
Chapter SevenMother Earth and California Sunshine
Chapter EightMotown Meets Malibu
Chapter NineLife at the Ranch
Chapter TenSomethings Happening Here, But It Aint Clear
Chapter ElevenNo Sympathy for the Devil
Chapter TwelveReach Out of the Darkness
Chapter ThirteenBeyond the Age of Aquarius
Chapter FourteenMore Than Flower Power
Chapter FifteenTo Every Season, Turn, Turn, Turn
Diane J. Purvis taught cultural history at Alaska Pacific University for twenty-five years. She is the author of They Came but Could Not Conquer: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Alaska Native Communities (Nebraska, 2024) and Ragged Coast, Rugged Coves: Labor, Culture, and Politics in Southeast Alaska Canneries (Nebraska, 2021).
