Bob Dylan is 21, Phil Ochs 22, Mark Spoelstra 23, Len Chandler and Tom Paxton 25, and Peter LaFarge is the oldest of the bunch at 32…. Besides their youth they have another thing in common: they belong to a whole new school of topical songwriter-performers that has emerged in American this past year or so and is today at a peak of song production. Much of their work is of a surprisingly high artistic quality, and according to some critics may be superior as music and poetry to anything of this nature we have witnessed before. (pp. 12-13)

[It] must be said here that they are by no means just topical songwriters. Actually, they are in the main extraordinarily gifted and versatile….

[Above] all, these are keen-minded young men greatly concerned with the world around them….

They all share basic similarities. They are unafraid of "controversial" ideas and are determined that what...