Yet, in hindsight, that professor turned out to be right. We were witnessing the construction of modern America—the economic systems, media landscape, and political structures that still govern our daily lives 45 years later. The decade began with Americans worried about losing their leading role in the world, beset by rising oil prices, high interest rates, stagflation, and surging Japanese competition that was laying waste to American manufacturing. The decade ended with a booming economy and the resurgence of American optimism, leadership, and confidence. Then, like an exclamation point, in 1989, Eastern Europe jettisoned communism, soon followed by the Soviet Union, joining China, which remained a police state but injected the free market throughout its economy. The 1950s and the start of the Cold War had shaped America’s military and geopolitical place in the world. The 1960s, with its civil rights protests, antiwar movement, and stirrings of women’s and gay liberation had redefined what it meant to be an American and had expanded liberalism. The 1980s—for better and for worse—rewired the way most of us live and work, the way we get our news, the political choices we have.
Read the full article here