Modern American Lives: Individuals and Issues in American History Since 1945

385 Pages·2008·3.42 MB·English

by  Blaine T. Browne, Robert C. Cottrell

MODERN
AMERICAN
LIVES
MODERN
AMERICAN
LIVES
Individuals and Issues in
American History Since 1945
Blaine T. Browne and Robert C. Cottrell
M.E.Sharpe
Armonk, New York
London, England
Copyright © 2008 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without written permission from the publisher, M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,
80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, New York 10504.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Browne, Blaine T. (Blaine Terry)
Modern American lives : individuals and issues in American history since 1945 /
Blaine T. Browne, Robert C. Cottrell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-7656-2222-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. United States—History—1945—Biography. 2. United States—Social conditions—1945–
3. United States—Politics and government—1945–1989. 4. United States—Politics and
government—1989– 5. Popular culture—United States—History—20th century. 6. Popular
culture—United States—History—21st century. I. Cottrell, Robert C., 1950– II. Title.
E747.B87 2008
973.91—dc22 2007025422
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z 39.48-1984.
~
BM (c) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For
My father, Lt. Ted J. Browne (USN, Ret.), one of the “greatest generation” of
World War II to whom we all owe an immense debt of gratitude
—Blaine T. Browne
and
My mother, Lt. Sylvia Light Cottrell (U.S. Army, Ret.), and other U.S. veterans
of World War II who liberated the prisoners at the Nazi concentration camps
—Robert C. Cottrell
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction xiii
Part I. The Years of Consensus, 1945–1960 3
1. Defining the Cold War 5
George F. Kennan: Architect of Containment 7
Henry A. Wallace: Champion of the Common Man and Cooperation 18
2. Fighting the Cold War at Home 31
I.F. Stone: Dissenter in an Age of Conformity 32
J. Edgar Hoover: Fighter Against the Red Menace 43
3. The Transformation of Popular Culture 56
Marilyn Monroe: Symbol of the New Sexuality 58
Elvis Presley: Rock and Roll Rebel 70
4. Outsiders in a Conformist Society 83
Jackie Robinson: Racial Torchbearer in the National Pastime 84
Allen Ginsberg: Avatar of the Beats 96
5. Defending Democracy in the Nuclear Age 108
Curtis LeMay: Apostle of Armageddon 110
C. Wright Mills: Prophet of the New Left 120
Part II. From Confidence to Crisis, 1960–1980 135
6. Civil Rights and Social Justice 137
Fannie Lou Hamer: Mississippi Freedom Fighter 138
César Chávez: Guardian of the United Farm Workers Union 148
7. Challenges to the Liberal Consensus 162
Tom Hayden: New Left Activist 165
Barry Goldwater: Hero of the New Right 177
8. 1968: The Hope and the Fear 190
Robert Kennedy: Herald of the New Politics 193
George C. Wallace: Practitioner of the Politics of Rage 205
9. Implosions: Collapse of the Counterculture and the New Left 217
Jimi Hendrix: Troubadour of Psychedelia 219
Bernardine Dohrn: Reformer, Radical, Revolutionary 230
10. The Women’s Movement: Revolution and Reaction 244
Gloria Steinem: Feminist Icon 245
Phyllis Schlafly: Counterrevolutionnary on the Right 258
Part III. The Search for New Directions, 1980–Present 271
11. The Roaring Eighties: Piety and Profit 275
Jerry Falwell: Standard-Bearer of the Christian Right 279
Bill Gates: Prophet of Techno-Times 290
12. After the Revolution: New Horizons for Black Americans 303
Tiger Woods: Golf’s Great Black Hope 306
Clarence Thomas: Black Conservative in Judicial Robes 317
13. America and the New World Order 329
Paul Wolfowitz: Democratic Imperialist 335
Noam Chomsky: Radical Gadfly 350
About the Authors 367
Preface
A glance at any dictionary of quotations will confirm that many prominent
thinkers and writers have acknowledged the importance of biography to history.
Perhaps most famously, the nineteenth-century American essayist Ralph Waldo
Emerson asserted, “There is properly no history—only biography.” An eminent
historian of the same century, Thomas Carlyle, phrased the thought somewhat
differently: “History is the essence of innumerable biographies.” This text has
grown out of the authors’ conviction that the history of contemporary America
can be more thoroughly comprehended, and students more fully engaged,
through an examination of the lives of those individuals who decisively shaped
the course of events in the decades following World War II.
Primary texts on American history since 1945 rarely accord sufficient
coverage to individual lives, most often because of editorial constraints.
At best, students might be offered capsule biographies, often relegated to a
box on the page that isolates the subject from the text and invites less com-
mitted students to ignore the material. Likewise, primary texts designed to
survey broad expanses of time cannot always offer detailed examinations of
all issues; some topics of considerable interest and importance are granted
only superficial coverage. Modern American Lives seeks not only to fill the
biographical void, thereby acquainting students with the lives of a variety
of influential Americans, but also to provide a comprehensive examination,
through those lives, of the critical issues that determined the course of modern
American history.
ix