- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (7 Aug 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743268598
- ISBN-13: 978-0743268592
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.4 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 935,294 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
When people think of culture in the 1970s they usually conjure up a confetti of kitsch, a jumble of disposable trash in which pet rocks vie for space with the Partridge Family to the tune of the Bay City Rollers. It was, so the received wisdom goes, the decade that taste forgot, a cultural wasteland compared to the decade that preceded it or those that have followed it. Not so, as Howard Sounes argues brilliantly and convincingly in this breathtaking tour of a decade's cultural endeavour. The 1970s may have had flares and big hair, but it also had Martin Scorsese, Lou Reed, David Hockney, Iris Murdoch, Jack Nicholson, David Bowie, John Updike, Diane Arbus, Monty Python, Richard Rogers -- and, of course, Snoopy. Weaving the stories of these and many other key figures together in a mesmerising and compelling mosaic, Howard Sounes shows why their contributions had such resonance at the time and why they still retain their cachet now. In doing so he completely re-invents the reputation of a decade, revealing the 1970s to be far richer and more significant in the shaping of the twenty-first-century world than we could have imagined.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was a very enjoyable read, an amazing panorama of the arts in one ten year period. The author has set out to celebrate the 1970s, which he thinks underrated (me too), through the best of its culture, concentrating on a few key stories. These are wide-ranging, taking in architects such as Richard Rogers, painters like David Hockney, rock stars (Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell at last given her due), movie-makers, sculptors and writers. A brilliant chapter about Iris Murdoch: very funny and enjoyable. Sounes doesn't get into the politics of the decade, other than to sketch in key events such as Watergate and the Vietnam War. He also takes a wider view than just what was happening in the UK. This isn't a book about the 70s as seen from the sofa watching Dr Who. Nothing about Top of the Pops or Chopper biks here. Also scant interest in the three day week, Wlson, Heath etc. Dull fellows that they were. Rather international events in the widest sense are the background to the arts: the stories of the creative geniuses of the decade, sometimes starting their stories earlier than the 1970s, but always returning to some key achievement of the time, something that has stood the test of time, such as the saga of the design and construction of the Sydney Opera House, finally opened in 1973 and as Sounes says surely the greatest public building of the last century. (Amazing story in itself). Although there are lots of characters, and lots of chapters, the book reads smoothly, one story segues into another. It is beautifully illustrated in colour, informative, funny and moving in places. Even when the basic stories seem familiar -- making of Apocalypse Now, Andy Warhol's Studio etc - Sounes makes them come alive and surprises with detail and anecdotes. Great summer read. Also probably an important book in the long term. All my favourites are here as a child of the time. Viva 1970s! Wasn't that a Roxy Music album title?
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was my era: the 1970s. And it's great to see somebody finally taking the decade seriously and pointing out how much it gave to world, not just Slade and Mud and It's a Knockout, but Bowie, Apocalypse Now, the Godfather, Bob Marley, great books and paintings.
It seems obvious that a picture like Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney is a great classic, a million times more enjoyable than so much current fashionable Brit Art. It was a 1970s picture and the story of its creation is one of those told in this hugelyu enjoyable book that starts in 1970 and then follows the decade chronologically, with chapters about Monty Python, the Pompidou CVentre, Jaws, Andy Warhol, Bowie, the Sex Pistols, Jack Nicholson and so on. He makes hjis points very well. Tremendous stuff, highly recommended.
It seems obvious that a picture like Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney is a great classic, a million times more enjoyable than so much current fashionable Brit Art. It was a 1970s picture and the story of its creation is one of those told in this hugelyu enjoyable book that starts in 1970 and then follows the decade chronologically, with chapters about Monty Python, the Pompidou CVentre, Jaws, Andy Warhol, Bowie, the Sex Pistols, Jack Nicholson and so on. He makes hjis points very well. Tremendous stuff, highly recommended.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a very good read. As some one who lived through the 70s, but was too busy with work and family, to take in all the films, books and music at the time, I now look back and see what a creative and exciting period it was.
The author writes very well, clearly, unpretenciously and wittily about the decade, and some of its great creative characters. Each chapter is self-contained, but linked in subtle ways to the others, as well as being presented in chronology, so you start the book in 1970 and end in 1979, left with the feeling of having been on a magic carpet ride.
The author writes very well, clearly, unpretenciously and wittily about the decade, and some of its great creative characters. Each chapter is self-contained, but linked in subtle ways to the others, as well as being presented in chronology, so you start the book in 1970 and end in 1979, left with the feeling of having been on a magic carpet ride.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Eloquent about the 1970s
For one like me, who had his formative years in the austere, but innocent postwar years and became an adult in the permissive, but optimistic 1960s, the 1970s stands for economic... Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2008 by Leif Asbjørnsen
A Journalist's Folly
A history of the 1970's which explores a decade which gave us culture as diverse as Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice and the Space Hopper set in an appropriate historical and... Read more
Published on 23 Dec 2007 by Eugene Onegin
A great read
This is a wonderful book. It does not pretend to be the ultimate and definitive cultural history of the decade. Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2007 by K. Heunicke
Against Abbafication
A personal look at some of Mr. Sounes cultural favourites from what he sees as an unjustly reviled decade. Read more
Published on 18 Oct 2007 by A. Miles
I'll Read It Again
Having just finished this history of the 1970s I feel moved to go online and urge anybody else interested in the culture of the decade to take a look at Seventies by Howard... Read more
Published on 22 Aug 2006 by Andrew Lloyd
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