Living in the Eighties

With the end of the George W. Bush administration and in the wake of the financial meltdown, the debate over the meaning of the Reagan years and the 1980s will only intensify. This collection of twelve essays advances the discussion by treating the 1980s as a significant and transformative decade. The mix of authors, including both senior and junior scholars, as well as one former Reagan administration official and a leading record executive, comes from across the political spectrum. Nevertheless all agree that many of the major forces that shaped the 1980s--and that emerged in that decade--continue to influence the United States today. For too long, those trying to assess the significance of the 1980s have been frozen in the continuing political debates about the pros and cons of Ronald Reagan, Reaganism, and conservatism. Some essays in this volume analyze politics, assessing Reagan's First Hundred Days, the Reagan Revolution's accomplishments, Reagan's foreign policy, how liberalism responded to the challenges and how Sunbelt politics changed American politics. Yet these essays go beyond simple discussions of pro and con, and appear in the context of a broader conversation about the social, cultural, intellectual, ideological and economic changes from period as well. Essays on cities and the debate over America's decline or resurgence, the unique eighties' sound, the gains of feminism, the rise of multiculturalism, the spread of revivalism, the revival of capitalism and the private sector complete the picture of a complex society in the throes of change. Aimed at both students and general readers, the book also provides a timeline, a photo essay, and a bibliography. These twelve essays are written by authors who include senior and junior scholars, as well as one former Reagan official and a leading record executive. Regardless of politics, each author views the decade as culturally, socially, economically and politically significant. The result is an important anthology that will make Americans realize we are all children of the 1980s, for better and for worse.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University.
Vincent J. Cannato is Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusettes, Boston