Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties was included in a reading recommendation in the Los Angeles Times by Gustavo Arellano. “One of the few good things Southern California saw in 2020 was a bounty of history books on the region. The ones I’m going to recommend all hit issues — protests, politics,…
All posts in News and Events
Leaders in Literature, Politics and Arts Share Their Favorite Books of 2020
Alex Ross shared that “Jon Wiener and Mike Davis’s ‘Set the Night on Fire’ is a revelatory history of Los Angeles in the 1960s, undermining pervasive media myths of the era” on the Wall Street Journal. Read more about it here.
10/23/2020 — L.A. in the Sixties: L.A. Institute for the Humanities Talk
Jon Wiener discussed Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties during an online event via Zoom with the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities last October 23, 2020. Histories of the sixties in the United States invariably overlook Southern California, but Los Angeles was the epicenter of that decade’s political and social earthquake.…
10/14/2020— “1960s Los Angeles”: UCI Faculty Book Talk
Explore 1960s Los Angeles with Faculty Author Jon Wiener. He will be in a live conversation with UCSD historian Danny Widener, moderated by Julia Lupton of UCI English. This event is part of Illuminaries, UCI’s new series of Zoom book talks featuring UCI faculty and instructors. Register here.
The Vast Majority: The Night Is Still on Fire
Jacobin deputy editor and host of Jacobin Radio’s podcast The Vast Majority, Micah Uetricht speaks with Jon Wiener about some of the interesting events and stories that happened in Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, a book he co-authored with Mike Davis. Listen to the interview here.
Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties — Rain Taxi
Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties was reviewed in Rain Taxi by Paul Buhle. “Two veteran authors allow themselves vast detail to tell about us about the cradle of “counterculture,” in all the far-flung rebellious meanings of the term. It is also the story of L.A.’s contested racial space, with contradictions ranging…
How Today’s Uprisings Compare to the 1960s Rebellions
Jon Wiener discussed Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties with Robert Scheer on the Scheer Intelligence podcast on September 17, 2020. “The core of this book is a chronological narrative of Black and Latino [people] organizing in struggle. It’s a movement history that starts in 1960, when young Black people in L.A.…
I Hope Someday You’ll Join Us
In this conversation, Wiener explains why it’s so vital, particularly in 2020, to recover L.A.’s radical history, and explains the process behind communicating a complicated movement narrative to a broad audience. We also hear bits from Wiener’s incredible career as a writer and journalist, including his involvement with the groundbreaking progressive radio station KPFK, and…
09/17/2020— East L.A. Blowouts and the Chicano Moratorium: Set the Night on Fire: L. A. in the Sixties and What We Can Learn From it Today
On Thursday, September 17, at 4:00 P.M PDT, the Liberty Hill Foundation will host its second virtual salon. Jon Wiener, Manuel Pastor, Judy Baca, and other activist voices from the ’60s in Los Angeles will be in a conversation. Please note that this is an invitation only event.
08/21/2020— Jon Wiener in Conversation with Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Carol Sobel
On August 21, 2020, Jon Wiener discussed Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties with Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Carol Sobel during a private event organized by Liberty Hill Foundation.