A study of the tragic events leading up to the killing of four students by National Guardsmen at Kent State University in the spring of 1970. Nowhere were the tragic implications of the gulf between young people and their elders in the 1960s more evident than in the terrible events that took place at Kent State University during the first four days of May 1970. Here, one of America's most distinguished authors probed deeply into that confrontation. A superb storyteller, Michener re-creates the events of that long weekend in a dramatic day-by-day narrative, building to the final clash that left four students dead and nine wounded. He brings all the leading participants to life, weaving his vivid documentary from the information gleaned from hundreds of interviews with eyewitnesses--students and ex-students, radical leaders, faculty and administrators, policemen and firemen, National Guardsmen, officials and citizens of the town of Kent. Startling photographs--some never previously shown--illustrate the action. This book deals with far more than Kent State. Michener explores the malaise that attacked university students in America and throughout the world--showing how the turmoil at Kent State fit into the larger pattern of violence that overwhelmed campuses and society in general at that time.--Adapted from book jacket.