How We Got Here

Jonathan Yardley

Frum is certainly correct to argue that although we tend to associate traumatic change with the 1960's, it was actually the 1970s that produced "social and cultural" change that left with us a world made new, and made new not by machines, but by new feelings, new thoughts, new manners and new ways.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In a new twist on the belief of many conservatives that the 1960s was the beginning of the end of a righteous and moral America, Frum, a contributing editor at the Weekly Standard, aims "to describe--and to judge" the transformation of American values during the '70s. Surveying politics, legal cases and opinion polls as well as popular culture, he links what he sees as America's loss of faith in government, the rise of "sourness and cynicism" and the culture of licentiousness and divorce, among other social changes, to events in that decade. Frum can be perceptive, as when he notes that Betty Ford's confession of her drug dependencies represented a major breakthrough in the discussion of private problems by public figures or when he considers how the "language of marriage" changed as "husbands and wives" gave way to "spouses" and then "partners." Yet his insights are often undercut by scornful assertions: e.g., that Ford "may have believed she was rendering a public service," but she opened the door to a "let's talk about me!" culture; or that linguistic changes eroded the family. Until his final chapter of overt political analysis--in which he asserts that "it was better when more people showed more loyalty to family and country... talked about themselves less, [and] restrained their sexuality"--Frum writes a popular history, although his disdain for those he does not agree with constantly shows through (e.g., he belittles Jane Fonda and Meryl Steep for daring to call themselves "artists" and suggests that Steve Martin is not funny). Filled with shaky, often unfootnoted facts and a palpable dislike for social change, this attempt at evenhanded social science devolves into a polemic that is likely to infuriate all but the most conservative readers. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In his last two books (Dead Right; What's Right), Toronto native Frum, a prolific conservative polemicist, argued that U.S. society has been corroded by post-JFK liberalism and especially by identity politics. His thesis here is that it is the Seventies, not the Sixties, that went on to define the rest of the 20th century. Like the work of any number of similarly well-educated left-wing counterparts, Frum's writing is not calculated to attract the "undecided" or convert readers with firmly differing viewpoints. Certainly, for anyone who graduated from high school between 1975 and 1979, his painful evocation of the oil embargo, busing conflicts, and the Tehran hostage crisis will dim whatever nostalgia remains for an America innocent of AIDS or the knowledge that cocaine kills. Unfortunately, Frum spends an inordinate amount of time lampooning Sixties youth. And while only a nitpicker would note such casual errors as calling Barnard sociologist Jonathan Rieder a Yale anthropologist, other readers--the ones who won't actually bother to read it, of course--will object to his version of not-long-ago American racial warfare. On balance, a book that academic and large public libraries will want.--Scott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

David Oshinsky

Frum is a terrific writer who deals breezily with a wide range of contemporary issues . . . Frum simply spins his web with a confidence that ignores contradiction and rival opinion . . . a quirky, irreverent book, and great fun to read.
—The New York Times Book Review

G. Calvin Mackenzie

How We Got There makes enjoyable reading, Frum is like an enthusiastic and knowledgeable docent, leading us through the well-stocked museum of what now seems a distant time. He writes gracefully, with a skilful blend of humour and irony, He has dug widely and wisely in his research, adroitly juggling sources that range from serious academic studies to comedy routines.
—Times Literary Supplement