From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

It wasn't the first time a member of the Bush family had turned the tables on a journalist, but senior writer Margaret Carlson was nonetheless a bit startled when Barbara Bush opened the interview by quizzing Carlson about the inner workings of TIME. "She was genuinely curious about the magazine," reports Carlson, who visited Mrs. Bush while she was still packing boxes at the vice-presidential mansion on Embassy Row.

Once the interview was under way, however, the questions Carlson had worked out with White House correspondent Michael Duffy drew surprisingly candid answers from the new First Lady. Carlson predicts that Mrs. Bush will be neither a demi-Cabinet member like Rosalynn Carter nor a backstage impresario like Nancy Reagan. "Mrs. Bush is so sure of herself, she has no need to prove anything," says Carlson. "She is as comfortable discussing the merits of one campaign ad over another as she is pouring tea."

Carlson found her way to Washington under the inspiration of consumer advocate Ralph Nader. She wrote a book called How to Get Your Car Repaired Without Getting Gypped. The best-selling paperback financed law school and eventually led Carlson to reporting and editing stints at the Washington Weekly, Esquire magazine and the New Republic. Joining TIME last year, Carlson started right off writing about the 1988 campaign, including stories on the presidential conventions. She had, she recalls, no trouble trading law for the fourth estate. "A lawyer works on cases that won't be settled for years," says Carlson. "TIME has a deadline every week."

1968. Bobby Kennedy dead, Martin Luther King Jr. dead. Apollo 8, the Tet offensive, flower power. Drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll. Gone, perhaps, but never forgotten, that turbulent, mind-blowing time continues to reverberate in the national consciousness. TIME profiles a pivotal moment in history with the publication of 1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation. Full of the pictures that indelibly marked a nation, this special collector's book recaptures a year when innocence died and the world turned upside down.