Crisis? What crisis?

The 1960s marked a major transition in the life and culture of Western societies. In three regards, the ‘long sixties’ of 1957 to 1975 may have a claim to be the most significant cultural departure in at least half a millennium. The first was the decline of Christianity. The second was the gender revolution. The third was the demographic transition to intensely low fertility accompanied by low marriage rates. For organised Christianity, the sixties constituted the most concentrated period of crisis since the Reformation; but what was at stake became perceived in many places as the very survival of Christian society and values. In this respect certainly, the sixties may turn out to have been more important than even the Renaissance or Reformation.

These opening remarks are controversial. The nature of what went on in the sixties divides modern historians sharply. The division differs between nations, and between historians of different specialism and ideological position. It also divides because so much of what is understood about the sixties shaped the modern academy, certainly in the arts and social sciences.