What Are the 60s?

People repeatedly comment to me that the definitive work on the 1960's has yet to be written.

My first response is that it has, but not in a user's manuel format that they seem to demand. My second response is WHY must the 60's be defined? There is no definitive explanation of the 1930's, 40's or 50's to my knowledge. They were self-defined by war, genocide, and economic catastrophes. These decades were equally as formative socially, politically and globally as were the 60's. Perhaps more so. Tumultous years that were the defining moments of the 20th Century.

Trust me on this; the 1960's were sandbox tame compared to the rise of Nazi Germany, Kristalnacht, the Holocost, the Rape of Nanjing, the incineration of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, and the McCarthy Era Witch hunts.

It is my belief that what people want defined is really: HOW were the sixties? A window through which we can glimpse the beauty of self-discovery. Personalities, self-revealed and radiant in realization. The sixties have been inscribed in the way we see ourselves in a world view. And that, my lovechild, is a formidable viewfinder on the world as it could have been.