A review by summerofsoaps
Strange Days Indeed: The 1970s: The Golden Days of Paranoia by Francis Wheen

2.0

This is an interesting, if somewhat uneven, book. It looks at the 1970s with the purpose of demonstrating that it was a weird and wild, extremely paranoid decade. I wasn't alive in the '70s, so I can't say how accurate Wheen's description is. However, I can say, that, being of a younger generation, I felt like a lot of his points went over my head. He spends a lot of time recollecting his specific experiences and expecting the reader to remember, too, which severely limits his audience. The book isn't constructed in any sort of linear fashion, so if you're expecting a straightforward, timeline style history, you're out of luck. There are some interesting parts, especially the bits about Nixon, Mao, and various dictators. A lot of time is spent on the UK's situation, which makes sense as Wheen is British, but a lot of the minutiae of British politics can be lost on the American reader (at least if the American reader is me). The germ of Wheen's idea (that the paranoia of the '70s lingers today) is interesting, as are a lot of the stories that are brought up as asides. But the book is a bit of a mess and doesn't live up to its potential. I am glad, though, that I read it right before David Peace's Nineteen Seventy-Four, because otherwise I would have missed a lot of the time period. I can't really recommend this book overall.