Whole World in an Uproar Music, Rebellion and Repression – 1955-1972

How the radical music of the 1960s was birthed amid unprecedented upheaval and systemic repression.

Seventy years since the radical music of the 1960s first hit the airwaves, the anthems of the era continue to resonate with our current times. 

Through studying these musicians and the political contexts in which their pioneering songs were birthed; amidst paranoia, psychedelic delusions, desire and civil unrest; Aaron Leonard’s Whole World in an Uproar is an important new critical history of countercultural music from the Summer of Love to the unwelcome arrival of Bob Dylan.

Aaron J. Leonard is a writer and historian with a particular focus on the history of radicalism and governmental suppression. He is the author of Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists, and A Threat of the First Magnitude, both with Conor A. Gallagher, and The Folk Singers and the Bureau. He has a BA with a dual major in history and social science (magna cum laude) from New York University. He lives in Los Angeles.