THE YEAR THE SWINGING SIXTIES BEGAN

An entertaining wander through changing times

Author: Christopher Sandford Publisher: The History Press Price: £20 Released: Out now

In 1964: The Year the Swinging Sixties Began, Christopher Sandford turns the clock back six decades to a time of immense global change. As The Beatles became the soundtrack to the swinging sixties, the UK emerged from the Profumo scandal and the Vietnam War escalated, it seemed as though the whole world was in flux.

Sandford’s entertaining investigation of the year in which he posits the sixties truly began to swing is a highly readable romp through a year of seismic change. Presented as four sections, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn, each of which he breaks up into individual chapters, this is a fast-moving primer that embraces everything from civil rights to Top of the Pops. It is an ambitious project given the comparatively brief page count, but Sandford more or less pulls it off. He clearly relishes cataloguing exactly what it was that made 1964 so memorable and, combining personal anecdotes with cultural milestones, his enthusiasm can’t help but rub off on the reader too.

1964: The Year the Swinging Sixties Began is an accessible and engaging history of a year in which the world changed forever. It will no doubt bring a nostalgic glow to those readers who were there and for those who weren’t, nicely captures the breathless sense that anything could – and did – happen. Though far from exhaustive, it is readable and fast moving. No doubt this engaging book will find an enthusiastic audience.