'An excellent book' David Aaronovitch, The Times

Was the 1960s really that great time of liberation, joyful experimentation and celebration of youth? Growing Up takes an unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the sexual revolution.

No era in recent history has been both more celebrated and vilified than the 1960s. For some it was a time when music, fashion and drugs enabled young people to express their individuality and freedom, their hopes and dreams of a different, perhaps better, world. For others, the decade marked the advent of the permissive society, with its undermining of authority, family values and common decency. At the heart of this continuing controversy is sex.

For this wide-ranging and eye-opening survey of the sexual landscape of the 1960s Peter Doggett has assembled a dozen little-known stories that reveal how the sexual revolution transformed people's lives. Growing Up provides an honest, often disturbing portrait of a constant battle between two forces: the urge to free the body from guilt and restraint; and the desire to control, cannibalise and exploit that liberation for profit or pleasure. It is a battle that divides opinion to this day.

About the Author
Peter Doggett first wrote about feminism and gay liberation in There's a Riot Going On, his 2005 history of the collision between rock music and revolutionary politics. Since then, he has published a series of books about the death of 1960s idealism, and its aftermath, as viewed through the life and work of the Beatles in You Never Give Me Your Money, David Bowie in The Man Who Sold the World and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in his 2019 biography of the same name. His other books include a panoramic cultural history of popular music, Electric Shock. He lives in Sussex with the feminist artist and film-maker Rachel Baylis.

Reviews
The case to rethink our assumptions about the period is one Doggett makes with verve and controlled passion ... An excellent book -- David Aaronovitch * The Times, *Book of the Week* *
[A] fascinating...new book about the decade [the 60's] -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *
Refreshingly undogmatic, well-researched and highly readable -- David Kynaston * Spectator *
I very much enjoyed the ride. Growing Up's strengths lies not so much in it being an expert guide to the seedier side of the 1960s (which it certainly is) but in the question Doggett has woven in every chapter, but just manages to leave unsaid: just how much has changed? -- Kate Lister * Daily Telegraph *
In rich and playful prose, Growing Up knits together material from newspapers, women's magazines, films, television and pop music to create an account of the 1960s that, unlike most popular histories, does not edit out the grim bits -- Louise Perry * Mail on Sunday *
An important reappraisal of a decade that changed us, for good and ill -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times *
Peter Doggett's fascinating new book Growing Up shows rather conclusively that the sixties was not a sexual paradise -- Tomiwa Owolade * Evening Standard *



Book Information
ISBN 9781847924285
Author Peter Doggett
Format Hardback
Page Count 400
Imprint The Bodley Head Ltd
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 775g
Dimensions(mm) 245mm * 170mm * 35mm