A fine piece of social history masterfully woven into a very moving, honest, and personal memoir… the reader is given access to a personal lens into “the sixties” as a founding moment in the history of the United States of America…It is a multifarious lens on the learnings of an inquiring and critical mind, profiting both from personal successes and setbacks, constantly searching for a transformation of the institutions of a nation wrecked by so many contradictions.
Link to full review is here.

~ Isabel Caldeira, European Journal of American Studies

A gripping portrayal of a dramatic era from the unique perspective of a keen observer, astute analyst, and direct participant in all its complex stages. In the author's words, "a book about the transformation of minds, my own and many others," and of the country, with rich lessons for those taking up the struggle today.

~ Noam Chomsky, linguist, philosopher, historian, social critic, and political activist.

Important book on the sixties - For anyone interested in the 1960s, or simply in contemporary US American history, this is a must read. The author was there. He participated, often in a leadership role. He knew the other major players. And his elegant and probing prose explores in depth this important era. A vital document from a scholar activist who tells it like it was and is willing to grapple with the contradictions as well as with the highs.

~ Margaret Randall, feminist poet, writer, photographer and social activist

For a relative handful of young adults who made the choice to be on the front lines of the anti-war, civil rights, and women’s movements, the 1960s was their passion and their work. Paul Lauter was among that handful on the front lines. In his new book, Our Sixties: An Activists’s History, Lauter details his participation, at times as a leader, in the organizations and activities, and how he continued that work when much of the demonstrating and protesting was over. The questions the young teacher was asking in 1960s Mississippi about the meaning of democracy and who gets to be counted are being asked today. As the revolutions for racial justice, gender equality, income equality, and climate action gain momentum, Lauter has faith in the power of a dedicated, mobilized group of people to change what they can no longer tolerate...

~ Theresa Forsman’s, full review is here, posted on the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County

Outstanding Memoir! Paul Lauter’s memoir is filled with superb descriptions and insights recalling a time of great upheaval in American society. The Sixties he revisits is seen from a true insider’s perspective, giving the reader a visceral sense of what it meant to be on the cutting edge of movements for social justice-- from civil rights, to equal education to feminism to examining and re-envisioning the literary canon. In fact, anyone who is interested in the culture in which we live can read this and better understand how we arrived at many changes in our society. And Lauter knew everyone—from literary figures Tillie Olsen and Helen Vendler to social activists Noam Chomsky and Louis Kampf to movement intellectuals and philosophers Paul Goodman and William Sloane Coffin. These and many other prominent people appear but never as name drops, as happens in so many memoirs. Lauter’s recollections are always substantive and contextual. Grounded in the study of literature, Lauter really knows how to tell a story and although he is, of course, at the center of this memoir, he is not always the hero. With a wry nod to his own mistakes and foibles, he invites the reader to experience the sixties as an era of impassioned experiment, replete with successes and failures. The book both delights and instructs--what more could a reader ask.

~ Rita Jacobs, writer, journalist and Professor of English at Montclair State University

Paul Lauter "stumbled" into the sixties, but he emerged (re)formed--by feminism, civil rights, the antiwar movement, black studies, personal catastrophe - and, not least, by his love of literature, especially poetry. Sixty years later, in another age of "illegitimate authority," his insights about resistance are invaluable, enlightening, and ever more necessary.

~ Mary Helen Washington, author, Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park

 A veteran of some of the most remarkable progressive movements of the past sixty years, the distinguished scholar and teacher Paul Lauter examines his life and times with frankness, down-to-earth humor, and hard-won insight.

~ Richard Yarborough, professor of English and African American studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Since the 1960s, Paul Lauter has been one of our most significant and effective educators. In this memoir of the sixties he provides eyewitness recollections of many of the dramas of protest as well as much-needed reflection on the visions, experiments, and legacies of that time.

~ Richard Flacks, author, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Lauter's clear-eyed account of the activist movements of the sixties - their successes and failures as well as the enriching consequences of activism on his own life - is an indispensable narrative for anyone committed to countering the many threats to democracy in America today.

~ Sandra Zagarell, Longman Professor of English Emerita, Oberlin College

Readers will find here revealing thumbnail sketches of important ‘Sixties’ organizations,in which Lauter sometimes acted as a functionary, sometimes played leading roles. Among them are the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO, which led Freedom Summer activities in Mississippi in 1964), Students for a Democratic Society(SDS), the New University Conference (NUC),and the United States Servicemen’s Fund (USSF). Lauter also was the staff person for Resist, the organizational arm of the 1967‘A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,’ helpfully reprinted as an appendix to this book, and he co-founded the Feminist Press with his long-time partner Florence Howe. These glimpses into the Movement provide interesting historical information, placing Lauter’s personal growth in that context. Readers will probably be most familiar with Paul Lauter as the editor of the Heath Anthology of American Literature, and as a guiding light for the newsletter/journal Radical Teacher. These landmark publications played central roles in transforming North American approaches to pedagogy and to the literary canon.
Link to full review is here

~ Michael Zweig, Journal of Working-Class Studies