Living in the Eighties

by Troy, Gil; Cannato, Vincent J.

• ISBN13: 9780195187878
• ISBN10: 0195187873
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-10-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

With the end of the George W. Bush administration and in the wake of the financial meltdown, the debate over the meaning of the Reagan years and the 1980s will only intensify. This collection of twelve essays advances the discussion by treating the 1980s as a significant and transformative decade. The mix of authors, including both senior and junior scholars, as well as one former Reagan administration official and a leading record executive, comes from across the political spectrum. Nevertheless all agree that many of the major forces that shaped the 1980s--and that emerged in that decade--continue to influence the United States today. For too long, those trying to assess the significance of the 1980s have been frozen in the continuing political debates about the pros and cons of Ronald Reagan, Reaganism, and conservatism. Some essays in this volume analyze politics, assessing Reagan's First Hundred Days, the Reagan Revolution's accomplishments, Reagan's foreign policy, how liberalism responded to the challenges and how Sunbelt politics changed American politics. Yet these essays go beyond simple discussions of pro and con, and appear in the context of a broader conversation about the social, cultural, intellectual, ideological and economic changes from period as well. Essays on cities and the debate over America's decline or resurgence, the unique eighties' sound, the gains of feminism, the rise of multiculturalism, the spread of revivalism, the revival of capitalism and the private sector complete the picture of a complex society in the throes of change. Aimed at both students and general readers, the book also provides a timeline, a photo essay, and a bibliography. These twelve essays are written by authors who include senior and junior scholars, as well as one former Reagan official and a leading record executive. Regardless of politics, each author views the decade as culturally, socially, economically and politically significant. The result is an important anthology that will make Americans realize we are all children of the 1980s, for better and for worse.

Author Biography

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University.
Vincent J. Cannato is Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusettes, Boston

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. vii
Timeline	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Ronald Reagan's 100-Day Revolution	p. 10
An Insider's Look at the Reagan Legacy	p. 23
Ronald Reagan's South: The Tangled Roots of Modern Southern Conservatism	p. 37
The Reorientation of Liberalism in the 1980s	p. 51
Bright Lights, Doomed Cities: The Rise or Fall of New York City in the 1980s?	p. 70
Feminism in the 1980s: Surviving the Backlash	p. 85
Intellectual Affirmative Action: How Multiculturalism Became Mandatory and Mainstream in Higher Education	p. 98
Reaganomics: The Rebirth of the Free Market	p. 125
Did Ronald Reagan Make the Berlin Wall Fall Down?	p. 139
Where Is Graceland?: 1980s Pop Culture through Music	p. 152
The Privatization of Everyday Life: Public Policy, Public Services, and Public Space in the 1980s	p. 167
Reaganizing Religion: Changing Political and Cultural Norms among Evangelicals in Ronald Reagan's America	p. 181
Further Reading	p. 199
Index	p. 203
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