They also have a certain tendency to cliche shown most clearly in their chapters on SDS. Sometimes they even develop a love for their own phrase and words. For example, they tell us in an early passage about university malcontents that:
The same students who envisioned the university as a utopian community sought a life style equally as revolutionary. Their life style was best described by the word spontaneity. The key to spontaneity was expression. . . . These students found enjoyment in activities that encouraged expression of feeling: hard rock music, sex, long hair, creative and flashy clothes.
Several pages later, describing the difference between the New Left and Worker-Student camps of SDS, they say:
New Left and WSA members also differed in their life styles. The New Left. . . approved of any breaking away from societal norms: long hair, drugs, sex, spontaneity were all part of the New Left style.
The same brand of cliched sociology also turns up in the book's pronouncements about general student unrest. Most college students, the authors tell us, were:
disgusted with the abuses of American society; they were the alienated generation. Their social consciences had been activated by the hope and progress of the civil rights movement in the early 1960's. But in the past two years, they had been sickened by the violence in the cities which gave clear evidence of promises still unfulfilled. Their faith in American society and in its symbols of authority had been undermined by the tragic assassinations of the leaders who had been symbols of hope.
There are other minor irritants-the authors' use of footnotes, for example. While the text is dotted with notes telling what the authors were do?? during all the excitement (Luskin ate Dean For??? abandoned lunch in University Hall: Neustad made speeches). there are no notes to explain where or when various celebrities made comment ??? attributed to them in the book (e.g. "President Pusey commented later, "The students there reacted like trained white rats. Bops. Clubs. Bust. Boom.")
But these flaws are easy to pick out only because the book is otherwise competently handled. You saw the action; now read the book.