Restless Giant is a magisterial interpretation of American history
between 1974, when the crisis of Watergate imperilled the nation,
and September 11, 2001, when terrorist attacks shocked the world.
James T. Patterson, whose earlier contribution to the Oxford
History of the United States, Grand Expectations (1996), won a
Bancroft Prize for History, offers in this follow-up volume a vivid
narrative of these 27 years, which did a great deal to shape
American life today. A host of memorable characters, notably Ronald
Reagan and Bill Clinton, sought to transform the nation.
Conservatives, including a resurgent Religious Right, battled
liberals in culture wars that appeared to cut the country in two.
The frightening Cold War finally ended, whereupon Americans faced
bewildering new developments in international relations. Though a
military colossus, the United States discovered-in Panama, Somalia,
Bosnia, Iraq-that it was far from easy to direct the outcome of
overseas events. Restless Giant insightfully explores a wide range
of cultural, social, and economic concerns. inner-city schools,
tasteless popular entertainment, an ever more exuberant
materialism-drove critics to label these years as an Era of
Conflict, an Age of Limits, and an Era of Decline. Patterson,
highlighting the buoyancy of American culture, is not so
pessimistic. The economy, having wallowed in stagflation between
1974 and 1982, later surged ahead. By 2000, most Americans lived
far more comfortably than they had in the 1970s. Thanks to rising
tolerance and a powerful rights consciousness, many groups-racial
and ethnic minorities, Catholics and Jews, women, the handicapped,
senior citizens, gay people-encountered considerably less bigotry
and discrimination than they had in the past. Pleased with progress
over time, the people of the United States seemed
self-congratulatory in early 2001. The horrors of 9/11/2001,
dispelling popular complacency, then ushered in a new and different
era.
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