This is an historical narrative that describes and analyzes the changes and excitement of the 60s. The author sees the period as one that proved Americans can do better than they have done in the me-decade of the 80s. He proposes that it was a time that rejected complacency in order to recover a zeal for the pursuit of excellence, for the nation to re-awaken to a sense of national mission and ideals; and a time when artists, intellectuals and the young offered alternatives to what the nation had become. The book focuses on what this period meant in US history, and addresses current issues, bringing an historical perspective to bear on issues of race, ethnicity and gender, among others.

This history of America in the 1960s covers the civil rights movement, Kennedy and the Cold War, the counter-culture and Beat Generation, the student rebellion, and the Vietnam War. It argues that liberalism self-destructed by emphasizing race and ethnicity instead of class and wealth.

A major American intellectual and “one of the right’s most gifted and astute journalists” (The New York Times Book Review) makes the historical case that the reforms of the 1960s, reforms intended to make the nation more just and humane, left many Americans feeling alienated, despised, misled—and ready to put an adventurer in the White House. Christopher Caldwell has spent years studying the liberal uprising of the 1960s and its unforeseen consequences and his conclusion is this: even the reforms that Americans love best have come with costs that are staggeringly high—in wealth, freedom, and social stability—and that have been spread unevenly among classes and generations. Caldwell reveals the real political turning points of the past half-century, taking you on a roller-coaster ride through Playboy magazine, affirmative action, CB radio, leveraged buyouts, iPhones, Oxycotin, Black Lives Matter, and internet cookies. In doing so, he shows that attempts to redress the injustices of the past have left Americans living under two different ideas of what it means to play by the rules. Essential, timely, hard to put down, The Age of Entitlement “is an eloquent and bracing book, full of insight” (New York magazine) about how the reforms of the past fifty years gave the country two incompatible political systems—and drove it toward conflict.

More than any other decade, the sixties capture our collective cultural imagination. And while many Americans can immediately imagine the sound of Martin Luther King Jr. declaring “I have a dream!” or envision hippies placing flowers in gun barrels, the revolutionary sixties resonates around the world: China’s communist government inaugurated a new cultural era, African nations won independence from colonial rule, and students across Europe took to the streets, calling for an end to capitalism, imperialism, and the Vietnam War. In this innovative work, James Meyer turns to art criticism, theory, memoir, and fiction to examine the fascination with the long sixties and contemporary expressions of these cultural memories across the globe. Meyer draws on a diverse range of cultural objects that reimagine this revolutionary era stretching from the 1950s to the 1970s, including reenactments of civil rights, antiwar, and feminist marches, paintings, sculptures, photographs, novels, and films. Many of these works were created by artists and writers born during the long Sixties who were driven to understand a monumental era that they missed. These cases show us that the past becomes significant only in relation to our present, and our remembered history never perfectly replicates time past. This, Meyer argues, is precisely what makes our contemporary attachment to the past so important: it provides us a critical opportunity to examine our own relationship to history, memory, and nostalgia.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Decades of Modern American Drama series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009 in eight volumes. Each volume equips readers with a detailed understanding of the context from which work emerged: an introduction considers life in the decade with a focus on domestic life and conditions, social changes, culture, media, technology, industry and political events; while a chapter on the theatre of the decade offers a wide-ranging and thorough survey of theatres, companies, dramatists, new movements and developments in response to the economic and political conditions of the day. The work of the four most prominent playwrights from the decade receives in-depth analysis and re-evaluation by a team of experts, together with commentary on their subsequent work and legacy. A final section brings together original documents such as interviews with the playwrights and with directors, drafts of play scenes, and other previously unpublished material. The major playwrights and their plays to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: * Edward Albee: The American Dream (1960), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), A Delicate Balance (1966) and Tiny Alice (1964 ); * Amiri Baraka: Dutchman (1964), The Slave (1964) and Slaveship (1967); * Adrienne Kennedy: Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964), Cities in Bezique (The Owl Answers and A Beast's Story, 1969), and A Rat's Mass (1967); * Jean-Claude van Itallie: American Hurrah (1966), The Serpent (1968) and War (1963).

Why did the youthful optimism and openness of the sixties give way to Ronald Reagan and the spirit of conservative reaction--a spirit that remains ascendant today? Drawing on a wide array of sources--including tabloid journalism, popular fiction, movies, and television shows--Philip Jenkins argues that a remarkable confluence of panics, scares, and a few genuine threats created a climate of fear that led to the conservative reaction. He identifies 1975 to 1986 as the watershed years. During this time, he says, there was a sharp increase in perceived threats to our security at home and abroad. At home, America seemed to be threatened by monstrous criminals--serial killers, child abusers, Satanic cults, and predatory drug dealers, to name just a few. On the international scene, we were confronted by the Soviet Union and its evil empire, by OPEC with its stranglehold on global oil, by the Ayatollahs who made hostages of our diplomats in Iran. Increasingly, these dangers began to be described in terms of moral evil. Rejecting the radicalism of the '60s, which many saw as the source of the crisis, Americans adopted a more pessimistic interpretation of human behavior, which harked back to much older themes in American culture. This simpler but darker vision ultimately brought us Ronald Reagan and the ascendancy of the political Right, which more than two decades later shows no sign of loosening its grip. Writing in his usual crisp and witty prose, Jenkins offers a truly original and persuasive account of a period that continues to fascinate the American public. It is bound to captivate anyone who lived through this period, as well as all those who want to understand the forces that transformed--and continue to define--the American political landscape.

Debating the 1960s explores the decade through the controversies between radicals, liberals, and conservatives. The focus is on four main areas of contention: social welfare, civil rights, foreign relations, and social order. The book also examines the emergence of the New Left and the modern conservative movement. Combining analytical essays and historical documents, the book highlights the polarization of the era and assesses the enduring importance of the 1960s on contemporary American politics and society.

The second edition of Dr. Gary A. Donaldson's highly successful textbook The Making of Modern America, introduces students to the cultural, social and political paths the United States has traveled from the end of WWII to the present day. While deftly cataloguing the sweeping changes and major events in America from "Dewey Defeats Truman" through the election of our first black President, this newly updated edition never loses touch with that American history taking place at the level of the people. This edition details not just the United States' rich cultural history, but elegantly repositions it as integral to our understanding of any portion of this country's past. Donaldson provides a factual foundation for students and then pushes them to interpret those facts, framing the discussions essential to any complete study of American history. The Making of Modern America, Second Edition is updated to include: --An expanded chapter titled "America After the New Millenium" which more retrospectively and completely details the 21st century's first decade. --A new chapter titled "The Second Bush and Obama: From the War on Terrorism to the Audacity of Hope" updating readers on the calamitous end to President George W. Bush's second term, the Obama administration's first term challenges and the Great Recession. --Newly revised readings each profiling an historical event, speech or figure--Lee Harvey Oswald to Bill Gates to Condoleeza Rice-- at the conclusion of each chapter.