It just might be getting hard to count the books dealing with Bob Dylan, and quite a hefty part of these books deal with Dylan’s overall cultural and social influence. Now we can add another title to that list: Decade of Dissent: How 1960s Bob Dylan Changed the World, focuses on when he “stood head and shoulders in influence above all others.” The title, from author Sean Egan, arrived May 20, 2025, via Jawbone Press. It’s available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
From the publisher’s announcement: Dylan’s 60s recordings constitute a dizzying run that includes such landmark albums as The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, the so-called “Basement Tapes” and John Wesley Harding, and such classic songs that set the template for his genius as “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Just Like a Woman,” “All Along the Watchtower” and “Lay Lady Lay.”
The career arc they collectively describe saw Dylan repeatedly instigate revolution, by turns reinvigorating folk music, turning protest songs mainstream, bringing the intellectualism and social conscience of folk to rock and pop, and reasserting roots music over the excesses of psychedelia.
The Dylan Decade of Dissent book author, Sean Egan, is a journalist based in England. He has written or edited more than thirty books on a wide range of subjects, from William Goldman to the Rolling Stones, Manchester United to Coronation Street, punk to Planet Of the Apes. They include Long Agos and Worlds Apart: The Definitive Small Faces Biography (2024) and The Guys Who Wrote ’Em (2004), an acclaimed history of non-performing songwriters. He has also written for, among others, Billboard, Classic Rock, Uncut, and Rolling Stone.com and contributed liner notes to reissues of albums by artistes including T. Rex, The Lovin’ Spoonful and Faces.
