Overview
Recent America is the story of the United States and the American people from the end of World War II to the present. The thickly braided narrative seeks to show the evolution of American life and experience in the sixty years since 1945 and to link the changes together.
Obviously, any work of history must be selective. Some themes and topics must be subordinated; others highlighted. In this work the author focuses, above all, on people. The concerns and doings of ordinary men and women are prominently discussed. That focus has led in turn to emphases on work, and income, and technology. But it has not precluded social relations, play, and the arts. At the same time, the orientation does not ignore the role of elites, especially in foreign policy and politics, in shaping the events that affect every American's life. It also does not ignore the play of large "forces," often unforeseen, that powerfully impact even the small events of daily life in recent America.
Professor Unger's first published book, The Greenback Era, won the Pulitzer Prize. Since then, often in collaboration with his wife, Debi, he has written seven more, including The Movement: A History of the American New Left, Turning Point: 1968, The Best of Intentions, and LBJ: A Life. He and his wife are currently writing a book on the Guggenheims, the industrialists and arts benefactors.
Synopsis
Pulitzer Prize winning author Irwin Unger provides a compelling narrative history of the American years from the end of World War Two to the 21st century. The text touches all the major topical bases—wars, economic growth, women, racial and life-style minorities, cultural trends, demographic evolution, and politics and diplomacy—while telling the story of America's history and places the themes within their chronological setting. Written to educate students in the broad trends, the text highlights how economic, demographic and cultural change affected all Americans rather than one specific group.
This volume covers all aspects of American history since World War II including “Postwar America (1945-1952), the Eisenhower Era (1953-1960), the turbulent sixties, Vietnam, an era of malaise, the conservative tide and century's end (1993-2001). For history enthusiast and others interested in a broad-based narrative on American History since World War II.