The ghosts of the 1960s haunt our nation to this day. It was a decade of change in America like no other, with equal measures of idealism and self-absorption, of openness and intransigence, of right and wrong both fueled by good and bad intentions, all battling for the nation's future - a future that could seemingly be decided by something as capricious as a coin flip.

America reached the boiling point in 1968, and "1968 With Tom Brokaw" does about as good a job as two hours of TV can do in sifting through the fallout of that contentious year, that exasperating decade and its enduring repercussions.

Brokaw, who no doubt hopes this documentary helps sales of his new book "Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today," takes viewers through the politics and pop culture of a year scarred irrevocably by tragedy and divisiveness, and manages (with the miraculous Apollo 8 December mission around the moon) to end on a note of hope.

While Brokaw's documentary's interviewees seem equally, almost arbitrarily, divided between those who were there when it mattered (Rafer Johnson, who wrested the gun from Sirhan Sirhan after he shot Bobby Kennedy; Andrew Young, who stood next to Martin Luther King Jr. when he was assassinated) and celebrities who'll up the show's ratings (Bruce Springsteen, Jon Stewart), it likewise manages an equal measure of insight, information and entertainment value.

Vietnam looms leviathan-like over the proceedings, much as the war in Iraq does in our country today. Stewart - a comic, of all people - sagely notes that the difference between the two wars is that there was a draft for soldiers in Vietnam, while today's military is composed of volunteers. Were the sons and daughters of middle America's parents being pulled from their loving embraces and thrust into hotspots in Baghdad and Fallujah, he implies, families would go nuclear over this war rather than merely regretting it ever happened.

Likewise, Brokaw allots much air time to the sundry protest movements. Though they may have seemed like good ideas at the time, their smug stridency put off many who might otherwise have agreed with their intents.

Clearly, it's impossible to coherently compress the 8,760 contentious and contradictory hours of 1968 into two hours (or, more precisely, 90 minutes with commercials). But "1968 With Tom Brokaw" does a yeoman-like job on this tough task; even better, if you're watching this, it means you're avoiding "Mitch Albom's For One More Day," which is reason alone to recommend Brokaw's film.

-------------------------

 1968 WITH TOM BROKAW

What: The news icon examines one of America's most cataclysmic years.
Where: History Channel.
When: 9 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9.
In a nutshell: It's impossible to compress 1968 into two hours, but Brokaw does a yeoman-like job on this tough task.