How TV Changed America's Mind

I read the book How TV Changed America's Mind by Edward Wakin. This was a very good book because it talks about the history of the United State for the past fifty years and all of the important events that where shown on TV during those years. The book points out that a lot of the events wouldn't have been made as big of a deal if television wasn't around to broadcast it to anyone that would watch. This book covered everything that happened in America from McCarthyism to the first moon landing in '69, to the O.J. Simpson trial. It also talks a lot about how the Vietnam War in the 60's was the first American war to ever be broadcasted on national television. Some of the shots from Vietnam horrified Americans very bad and caused them to think how poorly people in that country were treated. The pictures at the beginning of each new chapter (or every decade) shows Americans at the time wearing what was fashionable then, and each person has a TV (and each TV is the model of TV that was popular during that time) where there head should be. I thought that the way that the authors goes into detail about how much TV effected each event, because without TV many Americans may have never heard about or seen some of the biggest events that would ever happen in their lifetime. I also liked how the book went into some much detail about the sixties and seventies because those were the decades that my parents grew up during and I think that they seemed like some of the best times in America's history with everything from the music of that time to Woodstock to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, along with the assassination of his brother Bobby shortly after that. As well as the Watergate Scandal with Nixon to the shootings at Kent State University, which prompted Neil Young (while he was with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young) to write the song, Ohio, which told his feelings about Nixon and the tragedy that took place on that day. The author never really supports or demotes the use of television, he just talks about TV's role in America during the first fifty years of it being invented and also makes you ask "Will TV continue to play a huge role in the lives of many Americans, or will it just die out like another fad?" and also "Will the power of TV continue to good (it's probably arguable right now if TV is considered a good thing anyway) or will it get have a more and more negative effect on Americans as time goes on?"