While making no claim to be offering a total interpretation of the 1960s in America, this class will suggest interpretive guidelines for understanding the decade. The 1960s are best examined not as an aberration, but as an integral part of American history. It was a time of intense conflict and millennial expectations, similar in many respects to the one Americans endured a century earlier–with results as mixed, ambiguous and frustrated as those produced by the Civil War. Liberalism was not as powerful in the 1960s as is often assumed, nor, equally was conservatism as much on the defensive. The insurgent political and social movements of the decade–including student unrest and Black Power, the New Left, environmentalism, and feminism–drew from, even as they sought to transform, values and beliefs deeply rooted in American political culture. Ideally, students will take from this course how the 1960s served for a generation of Americans as the dramatization of our humanity. In the process, students will be exposed to a number of historical mediums including film, music, and a tremendous amount of lively class discussion.