This is Michael Maxwell with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I am recommending Rock Me on the Water: 1974—The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television and Politics by Ronald Brownstein.
Every once in a while, throughout history, a city will rear its head and assert itself over the cultural zeitgeist spreading its influence far beyond its own city limits. Think Weimar Berlin, Seattle in the 1990s, or swinging 60s London. In Rock Me on the Water, Brownstein makes a compelling case for Southern California’s cultural dominance over the 1970s.
Readers follow well-known faces from a variety of industries, with interesting points of overlap like when politician Jerry Brown and country rock songstress Linda Ronstadt become a Sunshine State power couple or when a politically naïve Jane Fonda links up with countercultural activist Tom Hayden.
I enjoyed reading about another time in our recent history when America faced a generation gap and sought different ways to bridge it. In many ways, the seeds of our modern culture wars were planted in this fertile soil of 1970s Los Angeles, and it’s worthwhile to examine these trends so we can recognize which of our problems are just the same old familiar issues with new faces.
Pop culture vultures and trivia aficionados will love reading Rock Me on the Water for the breadth of fun facts it provides. This is nonfiction writing with a wonderful sense of place, making readers feel like they’ve been dropped right in the midst of some of the most complex, creative, and compelling conversations of the last century.
Check out Rock Me on the Water by Ronald Brownstein and other books about the 1970s at the Sioux City Public Library today!
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