Determined to be Heard: Counterculture, The
In the 1960s and 1970s, the youth counterculture openly scorns the values and conventions of middle-class society. This counterculture becomes identified with San Francisco, with Los Angeles, and later rural communes. Social experimentation, alterna...
Collapse of Peace, The: Truman Gets Tough with Soviets Leading to Potsdam
Roosevelt is dying and leaves his successor Truman uninformed and poorly prepared. Truman berates foreign minister Molotov for Russia's not keeping its bargain at Yalta, but in reality there is little the U.S. can do to compel the Soviet Union to li...
Collapse of Peace, The: Consumer Demand
Initial fear that Depression conditions will return at end of World War II proves unfounded. Government spending drops but consumer demand more than makes up for it. Returning GIs want to get back to a normal life. People look forward to being able ...
Collapse of Peace, The: Fair Deal Rejected
Just after World War II ends, Truman submits to Congress a 21-point domestic program called "The Fair Deal." With control of both houses, Republicans in Congress move to cut spending and, within limits, chip away at New Deal reforms. Truman, however...
Other America, The: Causes of the Civil Rights Movement
The fight against the racism of the Nazis in World War II raises the consciousness of Americans about racism in U.S. society. Black veterans return home with rising expectations, no longer willing to accept second-class status. During the Cold War i...
Nation Torn, A: Disillusionment Spawned by Vietnam Conflict
The Vietnam war and racial struggles at home creates a wedge between the American people and their government. In retrospect journalists like Marvin Kalb feel they were systematically lied to by the U.S. government, and as a result unknowingly misle...
Taking the Offensive: Election of 1944, The
The election of 1944 hinges more on the potential for world peace than domestic reform. Roosevelt abandons many New Deal policies and replaces controversial vice-president Henry Wallace with Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri. Republicans nominat...
Common Ground: Society of Consumers, A
With its emphasis on financial accomplishment, culture in the United States often seems to revolve around consumerism. When America's love affair with consumption began in earnest in the 1940s and 50s, some likened it to a revolution.
Fallout: Nuclear Age, The
By 1949, the USSR tests first atomic weapon and a full-fledged arms race is underway. The growing obsession with the Soviet threat and people's fear of it is reflected in the dark movies of this era. Fear of a nuclear holocaust generates a successio...
Fallout: From Invasion to Stalemate
American commander Douglas MacArthur is convinced that the U. S. can overthrow the North Korean regime and create a unified anti-communist Korea. As U.S. forces approach the Yalu River border between Korea and China, China sends a message that it wi...