Restless Giant: The United States From Watergate to Bush v. Gore (68 page)

Poverty, racial discrimination, and inequality continued to blight American society, but economic gains, having been particularly impressive since 1995, had helped to soothe tensions and antagonisms. Though consumers were still running up levels of personal debt that astonished older generations and that alarmed analysts of economic trends, a pleasurable reality tended to elevate spirits in early 2001: Most citizens of the United States had conveniences, comforts, and real incomes that would have been hard to imagine in 1974, or even in 1994.

The Cold War had been laid to rest in 1990, ending with hardly a shot being fired in anger by contending armed forces and (after Vietnam) with scarcely any loss of American life. An international coalition, led by the United States, had stayed the course to win this long and arduous struggle, helping to deliver greater political freedom and economic opportunity to hundreds of millions of previously oppressed people. So it was that in early 2001, as since 1990, the United States towered as a military giant like no other nation in recent history. Pride in this power further advanced complacency. Though concerns about nuclear proliferation continued to beset policy-makers in 2001, popular fears of catastrophe from such weaponry were less acute than they had been during the Cold War years. Threats from terrorists troubled thoughtful Americans in early 2001, but few people imagined that these might produce carnage at home.

With changes such as these in mind, it was hardly surprising that most people of the United States, having forged ahead since the early 1970s, seemed prepared early in 2001 to put the political fighting of 2000 behind them and to anticipate peace and prosperity in the future. Almost no Americans at that time could foresee the terrible attacks that were soon to come. These assaults, indicating that there were no safe havens in the world, helped to transform the nation’s foreign and military policies, to endanger optimistic expectations, and in a host of other ways to complicate the lives of the American people.

Bibliographical Essay

As footnotes in the text suggest, the literature concerning United States history, 1974–2001, is vast. This essay mentions only those books that proved especially useful to me. It begins by identifying general interpretations of the era and follows by describing sources concerned with various themes and topics: politics, the economy, social trends, religion, race relations, and so on. The bibliography then identifies books (for other sources, see footnotes) that deal with particular time periods, beginning with the 1970s and concluding with the Clinton years through the election of 2000, with a final paragraph concerning statistical sources. Dates of publication ordinarily refer to the most recent printing.

General Interpretations:
An excellent overview of this era is William Chafe,
The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II
(New York, 2003). Godfrey Hodgson,
More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century
(Princeton, 2004), makes rising inequality the central theme of his critical account of these years. Michael Sherry,
In the Shadow of War: The United States Since the 1930s
(New Haven, 1995) focuses mainly on foreign and military issues. My earlier book,
Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974
(New York, 1996), is the chronologically previous volume in the Oxford History of the United States; many of its central themes find amplification in this volume.

A number of general books were especially useful in helping me to think about the main themes of American history between the 1970s and the early 2000s. As their titles suggest, three of these offer interpretations similar to mine: Gregg Easterbrook,
The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
(New York, 2003); David Whitman,
The Optimism Gap: The I’m OK—They’re Not Syndrome and the Myth of American Decline
(New York, 1998); and Robert Samuelson,
The Good Life and Its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement, 1945–1995
(New York, 1995). Three books that highlight the powerful role of rights-consciousness—a major theme of my volume—are Samuel Walker,
The Rights Revolution: Rights and Community in Modern America
(New York, 1998); Lawrence Friedman,
American Law in the Twentieth Century
(New Haven, 2002); and John Skrentny,
The Minority Rights Revolution
(Cambridge, Mass., 2002). Other books that look at major trends from a broad historical perspective include Arthur Herman,
The Idea of Decline in Western History
(New York, 1997), and Daniel Bell,
The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism
(New York, 1976). See also Robert Goldberg,
Enemies Within: The Cult of Conspiracy in Modern America
(New Haven, 2001).

Four books that challenge a gloom-and-doom approach often found in the American media are: Alan Wolfe,
One Nation, After All: What Middle-Class Americans Really Think About God, Country, Family, Racism, Welfare, Immigration, Homosexuality, Work, the Right, the Left, and Each Other
(New York, 1998); Wolfe,
Moral Freedom: The Impossible Idea That Defines the Way We Live Now
(New York, 2001); Neil Howe and William Strauss,
Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation
(New York, 2000); and Strauss and Howe,
Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069
(New York, 1991). Bill Bryson,
Notes from a Big Country
(New York, 1998), and Jonathan Freedland,
Bring Home the Revolution: The Case for a British Republic
(London, 1998), look at the United States from a comparative perspective (mainly with Britain) and offer acute (as well as entertaining) comments along the way.

Thematic Books:
A host of books center on politics during these years. Among histories, most of them biographically oriented, that highlight presidential politics over time are William Berman,
America’s Right Turn: From Nixon to Bush
(Baltimore, 1994); Alonzo Hamby,
Liberalism and Its Challengers: From F.D.R. to Bush
(New York, 1992); William Leuchtenburg,
In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Bill Clinton
(Ithaca, 1993); Lewis Gould,
The Modern American Presidency
(Lawrence, Kans., 2003); Fred Greenstein,
The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to Clinton
(New York, 2000); Julian Zelizer,
On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and Its Consequences, 1948-2000
(New York, 2004); and Sidney Milkis,
The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal
(New York, 1993).

As titles indicate, many other books lament American
political trends
, especially the role of money and interest groups. For examples, see Matthew Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg,
Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public
(Baltimore, 2002); E. J. Dionne,
Why Americans Hate Politics
(New York, 1991); Benjamin Ginsberg and Martin Shefter,
Politics by Other Means: Politicians, Prosecutors, and the Press from Watergate to Whitewater
(New York, 2002); Kevin Phillips,
Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics
(Boston, 1994); and Steven Schier,
By Invitation Only: The Rise of Exclusive Politics in the United States
(Pittsburgh, 2000).

Other helpful books concerned with politics include Ted Halstead and Michael Lind,
The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics
(New York, 2001); Byron Shafer,
The Two Majorities and the Puzzle of Modern American Politics
(Lawrence, Kans., 2003); Joseph Nye et al.,
Why People Don’t Trust Government
(Cambridge, Mass., 1997); and Jules Witcover,
Party of the People: A History of the Democrats
(New York, 2003). Mary Ann Glendon,
Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse
(New York, 1991), is a strongly argued critique. Steven Gillon,
“That’s Not What We Meant to Do”: Reform and Its Unintended Consequences in Twentieth Century America
(New York, 2001), is a sprightly book that emphasizes the legacies of various “reforms,” including immigration, civil rights, and campaign finance reform.

The role of
regions in American politics
(and in other matters) has engaged several authors. Books on the South and the Sunbelt, which rose in importance during these years, include Bruce Schulman,
From Cotton Belt to Sun Belt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938–1980
(New York, 1991); Peter Applebome,
Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture
(San Diego, 1996); Numan Bartley,
The New South, 1945–1980
(Baton Rouge, 1995); and Earl Black and Merle Black,
Politics and Society in the South
(Cambridge, Mass., 1987).

The rise of
conservatism in politics
has also attracted able writers. They include Dan Carter,
The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The Origins of the New Conservatism, and The Transformation of American Politics
(New York, 1995); David Frum,
Dead Right
(New York, 1994); Godfrey Hodgson,
The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America
(Boston, 1996); and Lisa McGerr,
Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right
(Princeton, 2001).

Books on trends in
American law
, including actions of the
Supreme Court
, include Howard Ball,
The Bakke Case: Race, Education, and Affirmative Action
(Lawrence, Kans., 2002); Laura Kalman,
The Strange Career of Legal Liberalism
(New Haven, 1996); Michael Klarman,
From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality
(New York, 2004); my book,
Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy
(New York, 2001); Gerald Rosenberg,
The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?
(Chicago, 1991); J. Harvie Wilkinson,
From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration, 1954–1978
(New York, 1979); Jack Greenberg,
Crusaders in the Courts: How a Dedicated Band of Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights Revolution
(New York, 1994); and the volumes by Friedman, Skrentny, and Walker mentioned above.

Broad treatments of
foreign and military ideas and policies
provided needed perspectives. For books concerning the Cold War, I relied on H. W. Brands,
The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War
(New York, 1993); Raymond Garthoff,
The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War
(Washington, 1994); and John Gaddis,
We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History
(New York, 1997). American attitudes are the focus of Tom Engelhardt,
The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation
(New York, 1995), and David King and Zachary Karabell,
The Generation of Trust: Public Confidence in the U. S. Military Since Vietnam
(Washington, 2003). A fine history of European developments is William Hitchcock,
The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945–2002
(New York, 2003).

Sweeping interpretations of foreign relations and recommendations for the future include Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century
(New York, 1993); Francis Fukuyama,
The End of History and the Last Man
(New York, 1992); Samuel Huntington,
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
(New York, 1996); Joseph Nye,
Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power
(New York, 1990); Nye,
Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics
(New York, 2004); and Paul Kennedy,
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000
(New York, 1987).

Economic trends
are closely followed in this book. Among the many helpful studies of economic developments are Richard Easterlin,
Growth Triumphant: The Twenty-first Century in Historical Perspective
(Ann Arbor, 1996); Leonard Levy,
The New Dollars and Dreams: American Incomes and Economic Change
(New York, 1998); Robert Collins,
More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America
(New York, 2000); and Thomas McCraw,
American Business, 1920–2000: How It Worked
(Wheeling, Ill., 2000). For the role of consumption, see Lizabeth Cohen,
A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of
Mass Consumption in Postwar America
(New York, 2002), and Stanley Lebergott,
Pursuing Happiness: American Consumers in the Twentieth Century
(Princeton, 1993). Steven Fraser,
Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life
(New York, 2004), is a lively economic and cultural history.

For trends in
technology
, see Howard Segal,
Future Imperfect: The Mixed Blessings of Technology in America
(Amherst, Mass., 1994), and Edward Tenner,
Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences
(New York, 1996).
Labor issues
receive scholarly treatment in Nelson Lichtenstein,
State of the Union: A Century of American Labor
(Princeton, 2002). For critical accounts of work and labor relations, see Naomi Schor,
The Overworked American
(New York, 1991), and Jeremy Rifkin,
The End of Work: The Decline of the Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era
(New York, 1995).

Studies of
poverty and social welfare
are numerous, among them the following: Ken Auletta,
The Underclass
(New York, 1982); Edward Berkowitz,
America’s Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan
(Baltimore, 1991); Gareth Davies,
From Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism
(Lawrence, KS, 1996); Christopher Jencks,
The Homeless
(Cambridge, Mass., 1994); Jencks,
Rethinking Social Policy
(Cambridge, Mass., 1992); Michael Katz, ed.,
The “Underclass” Debate: Views from History
(Princeton, 1993); Katz,
The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the Welfare State
(New York, 2001); William Julius Wilson,
When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor
(New York, 1996); and my book
America’s Struggle Against Poverty in the Twentieth Century
(Cambridge, Mass., 2001).

For other aspects of economic life I relied on Otis Graham,
Losing Time: The Industrial Policy Debate
(Cambridge, Mass., 1992), and Alfred Eckes Jr. and Thomas Zeilin,
Globalization and the American Century
(New York, 2003). Edwin Luttwak,
The Endangered American Dream: How to Stop the United States from Becoming a Third World Country and How to Win the Geo-Economic Struggle for Industrial Supremacy
(New York, 1993), is a strongly argued account. See also the previously mentioned books by Samuelson and Kennedy.

Concerning broad
social trends
, the following books are thought provoking: David Brooks,
Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There
(New York, 2000); Barbara Ehrenreich,
Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class
(New York, 1989); Francis Fukuyama,
The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstruction of Social Order
(New York, 1999); and Steven Gillon,
Boomer Nation: The Largest and Richest Generation Ever, and How It Changed America
(New York, 2004). Two widely noted books lamenting social privatization are Amitai Etzioni, comp.,
Rights and the Common Good: The Communitarian Perspective
(New York, 1995), and Robert Putnam,
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
(New York, 2000). See also Theda Skocpol,
Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life
(Norman, Okla., 2003). For social trends, see also the books by Wolfe and by Howe and Strauss, mentioned above.