1980

America's Pivotal Year
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9788-3117-9
Verlag: Rutgers University Press

Buch, Englisch, 208 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 233 mm, Gewicht: 445 g

Many people are aware that 1980 was an important moment in U.S. history: at a time of economic stagnation at home and international defeat abroad, it represented a turning point in bringing Ronald Reagan to the presidency and inaugurating a conservative era in American politics. What’s less well known is how the popular culture of 1980 also marked a pivotal transition. By boring in with granular detail on a few key touchstone areas—politics, music, film, television, and publishing—1980 describes a zeitgeist as it shifts, capturing those elements that harkened back toward the seventies as they jostled with others that pointed forward to the eighties. The effect is analogous to capturing in slow motion the mysterious but unmistakable process by which a child grows. The result is a lively, revealing, and informative account not just of a single year and the social milieu of an era, but also a book that traces some of the most profound rhythms of American history more generally. From who shot J.R. to The Dukes of Hazzard; from John and Yoko to the end of disco and the rise of rap; from Heaven's Gate to Private Benjamin; and from Jimmy Carter's defeat to the rise of Ronald Reagan, Jim Cullen shows how 1980 can be seen as a pivot point in American culture--a time of change that ushered in the current era.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cullen, Jim

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur

Über Autor(innen)

JIM CULLEN is the author of numerous books, including Those Were the Days: Why All in the Family Still Matters (Rutgers University Press) and Democratic Empire: The United States Since 1945. He has taught at Harvard, Brown, and Sarah Lawrence College, and is a member of the faculty of the newly established Greenwich Country Day High School in Greenwich, Connecticut.