Book Review: The Summer of '71 Five Months That Changed America by John A. Jenkins

    I am very grateful to highbridge Audio for the advanced listener copy of this history novel.  I feel like we are starting to see more books focusing on this "Disco Era" and it's importance in history. 

   When I was a Civics study in Junior High this era was most certainly not discussed. Many of my male teachers were veterans and had some very strong opinions on Vietnam. It was a topic that rarely came up as opposed to WWII which seemed to be all over our school library, and one book which showed some very gruesome photos from WWII probably shaped my interest in history, and horror all in one. I do wonder if the school library was even aware of that particular book (WWII in pictures). 

Fast forward many decades and it seems that readers are now interested in learning more about Vietnam, and not only Vietnam, but also many of the other fractious skudugger-ous  laws and activities that our politicians were getting up to in 1971. And Whoooooo-eeeeeee This was not the age of snap chat, internet access and instagram.  No one was really secretly video-ing a person in the parking lot- for any reason. (It would have been pretty hard to miss with the equipment required. ) BUT if it had been, there would have been so  so much tea to be consumed. 

Margolies, John, photographer. Coffee Pot Restaurant, Lexington, Virginia. Lexington Virginia United States, 1982. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017709465/.

I still like to think of this as very recent past, but looking around at all the folks in the workforce who were born in the 2000's this is objectively not the case and there will be many many readers who have no memory of the Disco age. 

This book packs in so much history for these 5 months-  if memes were a thing back in the Summer of ' 71 they would have been on par with the current ones about living in "unprecedented times" .  This is one to put on your shelf (and in your ears) if you have wondered how we got to where we are at in the US currently. 

Relying on many primary sources, it seems that Jenkins gives us a mostly neutral telling of the events and he does an excellent job connecting points that I might have missed- especially as a casual reader and learner. 

The Narration is excellent and it felt as if I was listening to a NPR radio program, rather than an audio book!  Jim Seybert is the narrator, and he's an Audie award winner for a reason! 

Definitely one to pick up for those summer moments when we feel like we should be doing more than pool lounging, we could be learning! 

First Published : 06/30/26

Pages: 448

Available as an Audio Book :  Yes - ~ 12 hours 

Trigger Warnings: war, discussion of sexual behavior, discussion of violent events, politics (this is not a full list, read responsibly)