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…
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