Promise of a Dream Hardcover - 2001

Media reviews

“A record of an era, winding one girl’s coming-of-age story through the drama of political evolution ... She has captured that amazing sense of possibility that grew with each year, the confidence that not only was the promised dream within reach, it was also upon us.”—Mary Maher, Irish Times

“This is a document historians dream of ... it captures the spirit of the 1960s—its fun and crazy idealism—in the life of one spirited young woman.”—Joan Bakewell, Sunday Times

“Unerringly perceptive and funny ... if you want to know what the sixties were like, read this book.”—Julie Christie

“The book works best in conveying the excitement generated by ideas, not just straightforwardly political ones but those about art and the wider definition of liberation ... I wasn’t there, but I’m happy that Rowbotham was, and that she remembers it with such clarity.”—Literary Review

“The accounts of the successes, failures, joys and pains of young adulthood have the qualities to be found in the best creative writing. It is a book to be read for the quality of its writing and the honesty and humor of its presentation, as much as for the history it reveals.”—Dorothy Thompson, Times Higher Education SUpplement

“Rowbotham records ... hearing an American use the expression ‘male chauvinism’ in 1967 and asking what it meant. It meant exactly what she and other women on the Left had suffered from for years—being ignored. If they spoke at meetings, the men would pause as if for a plane passing overhead, and then resume the discussion.”—Lynn Barber, The Daily Telegraph

“The accounts of the successes, failures, joys and pains of young adulthood have the qualities to be found in the best creative writing. It is a book to be read for the quality of its writing and the honesty and humor of its presentation, as much as for the history it reveals.”—Dorothy Thompson, The Times Higher Education Supplement