"So much of who we are now, across a broad spectrum of interests, is rooted in the sixties and particularly 1968," said Brokaw, who is shown in the special as a young newsman reporting from the center of the hippie culture, Haight-Ashbury. "It was a profoundly eventful time, and the lasting effects are as vigorously debated as the era that produced them."

The special takes an immersive, unflinching look at the present-day impact of the black power and anti-war student movements and their turn to violence; the era’s culture, fashion, and captivating and sometimes groundbreaking music, ranging from the Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin to The Rascals; the “turn-on, tune in, drop out” drug culture; the women’s movement; and landmark political events that include Eugene McCarthy’s stunning near upset of then-president Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire Democratic primary and George Wallace’s divisive presidential campaign.

“Why don't you learn some other four letter words like w-o-r-k, and s-o-a-p. You ought to learn those. You don't know those,” Wallace says to protestors at a campaign event. Adds Pat Buchanan in an interview for the special: “I remember when they had the riots at Columbia and Mark Rudd [also interviewed for the special] took over the campus. I wrote a statement [for Nixon] denouncing these over-privileged kids for what they were doing ... Let me tell you, they didn't have any support in Middle America.” Which brings us to one of the special’s central questions: What have we learned since then? How have we changed as a society? As noted in the special, today’s anti-war activity seems muted, compared to the Vietnam protests.

A witness to history, Brokaw describes his personal memories of waiting for news outside a Los Angeles hospital after Robert F. Kennedy was shot, of losing one of his best friends in the Vietnam war, and of the mayhem at the Democratic convention in Chicago. Brokaw recalls that his own father was angered by the student protests at the convention. “At the end of the week, I went back to South Dakota to visit my workingclass dad, a longtime Democrat, who was opposed to the war in Vietnam,” he says. “But he was enraged by … the behavior of the anti-war demonstrators, the way they had flown the Viet Cong flag and taunted the police. I knew then that the Democratic party was in real trouble.”

Pulitzer Prize winner and conservative journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz believes the assassinations of Dr. King and RFK may have scarred an entire generation. “You can't underestimate the power that this had over a very depressed and shattered people,” she says. “People would get up in the morning and say, ‘What's going to happen now?’ And … children, it was noted at the time, didn’t know that leaders actually died a natural death. They began to think everybody was assassinated. It was one of the dark, gothic, terrible jokes of the time that the children of that era saw that.”

And yet Brokaw argues the traumatic time ultimately produced valuable lessons for this country and its people. "If there is one enduring lesson for me, it is that we survived as a nation and as a culture. We were altered radically in some areas of our national and individual interests, and little changed in others," he says. "1968 remains a watershed year in contemporary history, but the effect of it has neither been linear nor certain. It represents evolution more than it represents a separate and distinct path of development for American life."

Our Review

Although I was around in 1968, I was too young to appreciate what was happening around me.  If I was only born a few years younger, I would have been experiencing one of the most important years in American and even world history.  There were so many things happening around the world and even here at home.  The documentary takes you on a journey back in time with Tom Brokaw as your guide (the first thing you will notice very early in the program is how young he looked back then - and how well he has aged).  Through old footage, Brokaw's commentary, and experiences and stories of various guest, you get a real perspective of what it may have been like to be there at that time -- or if you were, hopefully provide you a look into what "the other side" had to say.

The documentary is very well done, and the production of the show is very well done.  The interviews, film clips and even the music (good soundtrack), set the right tone for the show.  It is one thing to read about it, and other to watch a movie set in that time frame, but this kind of gives you a look at how it may have been like to actually be there.  I do wonder, what if I was a bit older, lets say between 18-22, what would I have done?  Would I have gone off to war?  Would I have burnt my draft card?  Would I have been an activist, or fed up with all the speak of change? If I was of the older generation (1968 showed that there was a real generation gap), would I have understood what these kids were trying to do, or would I have criticized them for their craziness?

This is a show I would recommend, not only because you might actually learn something from it, but because it is actually an entertaining experience.  I will watch it again with my wife when it first airs on December 9th, and highly recommend it to others. Peace [by Ian Ripley]