Dazed and Confused: America Confronts the 1970s

A concise overview of a neglected decade in American history as the nation reflects on its 50th anniversary. While historians have revisited every aspect of America history in the tumultuous 1960s, coverage of the following decade is sparse. As America reflects on the 50th anniversary of the 1970s, Blaine Browne reexamines the decade’s major international, political, social, cultural, economic, and intellectual developments, giving special attention to how its developments continue to impact American life. He views the decade as a major transitional era, given the death of many of the promises and hopes of the Sixties, the collapse of the post-World War II consensus, and the uncertainties of a new age in which the America might well not enjoy the preeminent global position it had held for the previous quarter century. Growing fundamental economic challenges, as well as concerns about the viability of the nation’s political leadership and democratic institutions added to these anxieties. A general angst permeated national life. Whether readers are reliving the years when they came of age or exploring the 1970s for the first time, Dazed and Confused will introduce the topics and cast of characters who defined this pivotal decade in American life.