Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine.

I am joined today by the journalist Charles Kaiser.

He is the author of such books as The Gay Metropolis, The Cost of Courage,

and the book of most interest to us today, 1968 in America,

which he wrote in 1988, but which was reissued in a 30th anniversary edition.

Charles Kaiser currently serves as a non-fiction book critic for the Guardian US.

Charles Kaiser, welcome to Code Affairs.

Thank you very much for having me.

Nice to be here.

Well, there's a headline in the New York Times about 10 days ago.

Chicago would like everyone to stop talking about 1968.

And in it, it says that the mayor of Chicago has been dogged by the comparisons of the upcoming

Democratic National Convention in Chicago with the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention,

which also featured the prospect of, and in fact the realization

of very serious anti-war protests. But if Chicago wants people to stop talking about 1968,

we here at current affairs are not going to. We're going to instead talk to one of the

world's leading experts on the year 1968 about why people might be talking about 1968. You wrote this entire

book, 1968 in America, which is fascinating. And I want to start with the question of why you

decided to spend years of your life writing about one year, why this year, why 1968?

Well, as a reporter, which is what I was at the time, it was pretty obvious that more things

happened in 1968 than any other year of my lifetime. And when you're writing a book, at least

when I'm writing a book, you're always looking for something where you're confident that the narrative

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