Abstract
Social historians changed how history is done. They also changed how history is defined, and importantly, who history is about. The recognition of the relationship between power, knowledge, cultural symbolism and social memory resulted in a very different understanding of history and identity, ultimately bringing tremendous challenges to social authority. As a burgeoning population of baby boomers recognized the power of symbolic culture as a form of political domination, as well as a tool for social mobilization, the countercultural revolution emerged; profoundly altering the way history is articulated in the public sphere. Exploring the relationship between the rise of social history and the tumult of the 1960s reveals how these changes occurred, and how aspects of cultural memory and social identity continue to affect the construction of history in the public sphere.