The Making of Rosie's Daughters...lessons in putting content into context

The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends in the west, particularly United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Australia and West Germany. Social and political upheaval was not limited to these countries, but included such nations as Japan, Mexico, Yugoslavia and others.

In the United States, "The Sixties", as they are known in popular culture, is a term used by historians, journalists, and other objective academics; in some cases nostalgically to describe the counter-culture and social revolution near the end of the decade; and pejoratively to describe the era as one of irresponsible excess and flamboyance. The decade was also labeled the Swinging Sixties because of the libertine attitudes that emerged during this decade. Rampant drug use has become inextricably associated with the counter-culture of the era, as Jefferson Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner mentions: "If you can remember anything about the sixties, then you weren't really there."'

The 1960s have become synonymous with all the new, exciting, radical, and subversive events and trends of the period, which continued to develop in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and beyond. In Africa the 1960s was a period of radical political change as 32 countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers.

Some commentatorsChristopher Booker: The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life In The Fifties and Sixties, Gambit Incorporated, London, 1970 have seen in this era a classical Jungian nightmare cycle, where a rigid culture, unable to contain the demands for greater individual freedom, broke free of the social constraints of the previous age through extreme deviation from the norm. Booker charts the rise, success, fall/nightmare and explosion in the London scene of the 1960s. This does not alone however explain the mass nature of the phenomenon.

Several Western governments turned to the left in the early 1960s. In the United States John F. Kennedy was elected to the presidency. Italy formed its first left-of-centre government in March 1962 with a coalition of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and moderate Republicans. Socialists joined the ruling block in December 1963. In Britain, the Labour Party gained power in 1964.Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, Israel, Italy, India, South Korea, Pen Island, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 247-248. In Brazil, João Goulart became president after Jânio Quadros resigned.