Turning Forty in the Eighties

Turning Forty in the Eighties PDF Author: Michael P. Nichols
Publisher: Touchstone
ISBN: 9780671642471
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
Gently but firmly, Dr. Nichols shows the millions of Americans turning forty in the '80s how to creatively deal with the challenge posed by this day and age and alerts the reader to the dangers to be found in extreme preoccupation with self-improvement.

Living in the Eighties

Living in the Eighties PDF Author: Gil Troy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019972010X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
Some see the 1980s as a Golden Age, a "Morning in America" when Ronald Reagan revived America's economy, reoriented American politics, and restored Americans' faith in their country and in themselves. Others see the 1980s as a new "Gilded Age," an era that was selfish, superficial, glitzy, greedy, divisive, and destructive. This multifaceted exploration of the 1980s brings together a variety of voices from different political persuasions, generations, and vantage points. The volume features work by Reagan critics and Reagan fans (including one of President Reagan's closest aides, Ed Meese), by historians who think the 1980s were a disastrous time, those who think it was a glorious time, and those who see both the blessings and the curses of the decade. Their essays examine everything from multiculturalism, Southern conservatism, and Reaganomics, to music culture, religion, crime, AIDS, and the city. A complex, thoughtful account of a watershed in our recent history, this volume will engage anyone interested in this pivotal decade.

The Other Eighties

The Other Eighties PDF Author: Bradford Martin
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 142995342X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
In this engaging new book, Bradford Martin illuminates a different 1980s than many remember—one whose history has been buried under the celebratory narrative of conservative ascendancy. Ronald Reagan looms large in most accounts of the period, encouraging Americans to renounce the activist and liberal politics of the 1960s and ‘70s and embrace the resurgent conservative wave. But a closer look reveals that a sizable swath of Americans strongly disapproved of Reagan's policies throughout his presidency. With a weakened Democratic Party scurrying for the political center, many expressed their dissatisfaction outside electoral politics. Unlike the civil rights and Vietnam era protesters, activists of the 1980s often found themselves on the defensive, struggling to preserve the hard-won victories of the previous era. Their successes, then, were not in ushering in a new era of progressive reforms but in effecting change in areas from professional life to popular culture, while beating back an even more forceful political shift to the right. Martin paints an indelible portrait of these and other influential, but often overlooked, movements: from on-the-ground efforts to constrain the administration's aggressive Latin American policy and stave off a possible Nicaraguan war, to mock shanties constructed on college campuses to shed light on corporate America's role in supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa. The result is a clearer, richer perspective on a turbulent decade in American life.

Back to Our Future

Back to Our Future PDF Author: David Sirota
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345518802
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Wall Street scandals. Fights over taxes. Racial resentments. A Lakers-Celtics championship. The Karate Kid topping the box-office charts. Bon Jovi touring the country. These words could describe our current moment—or the vaunted iconography of three decades past. In this wide-ranging and wickedly entertaining book, New York Times bestselling journalist David Sirota takes readers on a rollicking DeLorean ride back in time to reveal how so many of our present-day conflicts are rooted in the larger-than-life pop culture of the 1980s—from the “Greed is good” ethos of Gordon Gekko (and Bernie Madoff) to the “Make my day” foreign policy of Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush) to the “transcendence” of Cliff Huxtable (and Barack Obama). Today’s mindless militarism and hypernarcissism, Sirota argues, first became the norm when an ’80s generation weaned on Rambo one-liners and “Just Do It” exhortations embraced a new religion—with comic books, cartoons, sneaker commercials, videogames, and even children’s toys serving as the key instruments of cultural indoctrination. Meanwhile, in productions such as Back to the Future, Family Ties, and The Big Chill, a campaign was launched to reimagine the 1950s as America’s lost golden age and vilify the 1960s as the source of all our troubles. That 1980s revisionism, Sirota shows, still rages today, with Barack Obama cast as the 60s hippie being assailed by Alex P. Keaton–esque Republicans who long for a return to Eisenhower-era conservatism. “The past is never dead,” William Faulkner wrote. “It’s not even past.” The 1980s—even more so. With the native dexterity only a child of the Atari Age could possess, David Sirota twists and turns this multicolored Rubik’s Cube of a decade, exposing it as a warning for our own troubled present—and possible future.

The Last Game

The Last Game PDF Author: Jason Cowley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847377173
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
On 26 May 1989, the final day of the season, Arsenal travelled to Anfield to face the mighty Liverpool, needing a two-goal victory to claim a championship that seemed for so many reasons to belong to their opponents. What followed was one of the most remarkable football matches at the end of one of the most dramatic and politically charged seasons in English football history; a season that marked the transition between old and new football and which would come to be seen as a threshold for astonishing changes not just in football but in the wider culture. Featuring interviews with the main players in this drama, including many of the legendary figures who took part in that famous final game, The Last Gameis a probing and resonant work of dramatic reportage that reflects on the stark changes the national sport has undergone in twenty tumultuous years. Journeying from the intense and hostile terraces of the 1980s, where male violence and tribalism coupled with decrepit stadiums led to tragedies like Heysel and Hillsborough, to the new commercialism that has engulfed the modern game, where fans have turned customers and, some say, security has come at the cost of identity, The Last Game tells the story of how a nation was changed by one astonishing game.

The Global 1980s

The Global 1980s PDF Author: Jonathan Davis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429624360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
The Global 1980s takes an international perspective on the upheaval across the world during the long 1980s (1979–1991) with the end of the Cold War, a move towards a free-market economic system, and the increasing connectedness of the world. The 1980s was a decade of unimaginable change. At its start, dictatorships across the world appeared stable, the state was still seen as having a role to play in ensuring people’s well-being, and the Cold War seemed set to continue long into the future. By the end of the decade, dictatorships had fallen, globalisation was on the march and the opening of the Berlin Wall paved the way for the end of the Cold War. Divided into four chronological parts, sixteen chapters on themes including domestic politics, the global spread of democracy, international relations and global concerns including AIDS, acid rain and nuclear war, explore how world-wide change was initiated both from above and below. The book covers such topics as ideological changes in the liberal democratic west and socialist east, protests against nuclear weapons and for democratic governance, global environmental worries, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. Offering an overview of a decade in transition, as the global order established after 1945 broke down and a new, globalised world order emerged, and supported by case studies from across the world, this truly global book is an essential resource for students and scholars of the long 1980s and the twentieth century more generally.

The Eighties

The Eighties PDF Author: John Ehrman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300115822
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
John Ehrman offers analysis of the transformation in American politics & society that marked the years of the Reagan presidency during the 1980s. He considers the fundamental shifts in American attitudes & examines the way Reagan built a right wing consensus around key policies.

The '80s: Museo de la Moda

The '80s: Museo de la Moda PDF Author: Jorge Yarur Bascunan
Publisher: Rizzoli Publications
ISBN: 0847868419
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The unapologetic excess, glamour, and bold eccentricity of 1980s style graces every page of this extraordinary collection of clothing and accessories from the decade's most influential fashion figures. The Museo de la Moda here documents the thriving creative sartorial period during the 1980s through an amazing collection of 500 vintage pieces curated by the museum's founder, Jorge Yarur Bascuñán. Founded in 1999 and opened in 2007 in Santiago, Chile, the museum has amassed one of the world's largest collections of 1980s garments, accessories, and design objects, from subversive, deconstructed ensembles by Comme des Garçons to explosively graphic Fiorucci jumpsuits. The '80s: Museo de la Moda captures a decade marked by audacious displays of opulence and fearless experimentation where the worlds of music, art, fashion, culture, and design collided and informed each other. This substantial volume presents close to 600 pages of fabulous garments and accessories--many featured in Vogue, Elle, L'Officiel--from renowned designers such as Azzedine Alaïa, Issey Miyake, Katharine Hamnett, Claude Montana, Yohji Yamamoto, and BodyMap. The dynamic photo collages are accompanied by new interviews with the boldest international personalities and fashion designers, who reminisce on that vibrant time, including Jean Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Joan Collins, Jane Fonda, and Thierry Mugler, among others. Chapters explore aesthetic themes, ranging from urban fashion and dressing for the evening to men's fashion and motifs and color. The ultimate book on '80s fashion, this essential volume will be treasured by fashion, style, popular culture, and design enthusiasts alike.

The Cold War: a Very Short Introduction

The Cold War: a Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Robert J. McMahon
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198859546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Book Description
Vividly written and based on up-to-date scholarship, this title provides an interpretive overview of the international history of the Cold War.

The Eighties

The Eighties PDF Author: Gilbert T. Sewall
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9780738200354
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
The America of the 1980s is often caricatured as a time of yuppie greed and self-absorption. But what was driving that decades rampant pursuit of individual pleasure? What were the cultural forces behind Madonna's ”Material Girl” and Oliver Stone's Wall Street? These fascinating essays, collected by historian Gilbert T. Sewall from the major books, journals, news reports, and public addresses of the day, survey the tumultuous social change that engulfed the nation—and explain why we are still feeling the aftershocks today.With contributions by such diverse figures as Chistopher Lasch, Lewis H. Lapham, Eric Bogosian, and Hilton Kramer, The Eighties touches on the hallmarks of the age: celebrity culture and hype, exhibitionism and shamelessness, academic ferment, and the lure of money. Kennedy Fraser on the new trend machine. James Q. Wilson on attitudes toward crime, Shelby Steele on African American angst, Tom Wolfe on art objects as religious totems—this lively reader brings together, for the first time, the voices that defined an era.As Sewall so deftly tells it, the story of the 1980s is not merely one of politics or financial chicanery—although both get their due in the book. The 1980s were an era of disquieting attitudes, fantasies, and dreams. As Americans experienced new forms of social anxiety and spiritual crisis, the debate over what constitutes excellence in the arts and in education touched off the so-called culture wars. All of this is evident in the rise of identity politics as well as in films like The Big Chill and feel-good democratic displays of international activism like Live Aid, in the overnight sensation of cocaine-fueled, star-studded nightclubs like New York City's Limelight, in the flamboyant mood of hit television shows like Dynasty and Dallas, and in the success of The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom's staunch defense of Western tradition.Invigorated conservatism in politics and society was, paradoxically, accompanied by the ascent of a new establishment of ”tenured radicals,” for whom alternative values and cultural innovation supported lucrative careers. Finally empowered to make the social and political changes they had only dreamed about in earlier decades, these boomers stimulated an acrimonious debate over the nature of the good life and the soul of the nation.With remarkable verve, The Eighties sheds new light on the decade that brought us Ronald Reagan and MTV, a decade that continues to frame some of today's most vexing political, economic, and cultural debates