|
|
|
Reviews
| The Columbia History of Post-World War II America, edited by Mark C. Carnes. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 544 pages. $49.60, cloth.
|
| Teachers of post-World War II United States history will find a wealth of creative and engaging work in this volume. Neither a textbook nor a book attempting to cover all aspects of the period, this compilation contains essays written by prominent scholars on a range of topics seeking to reexamine and redefine post-1945 America. It succeeds in provoking the reader to look beyond familiar categories of political, economic, and social history—or even such specializations as race or gender—to recognize interconnected themes and broad socio-cultural patterns. |
1
|
|
It is not possible in a short review to articulate fully the wealth of subjects and arguments posited here. Perusing the table of contents and indexes is essential for those interested in particular topics. The essays are distributed into the book's three parts, entitled "Culture," "Politics," and "Government." However, it is not clear why these simple categories are used, since the interdisciplinary nature of many of the essays defies them. The "Government" section, for example, contains only two essays somewhat specific to federal policy, while numerous others throughout the work also touch on aspects of government, policy, and politics. This volume is heavily influenced by the historiographic trend toward "culture." Essays include a healthy dose of art, including discussions of art, art criticism, photography, film, popular music, and television. They also deal with numerous cultural institutions ranging from the somewhat more traditional areas of family, labor, religion, or commerce to some less familiar topics reflected in the essays "The Military, Sport, and Warrior Culture" and "Death, Mourning, and Memorial Culture." Equally prominent within these essays is a tendency toward the political, especially in terms of political culture along the lines laid out by Meg Jacobs, William Novak, and Julian Zelizer in The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History. The focus is less on political institutions per se, and more on the relationship between politics and the media, labor, civil rights, women's issues, the New Left, and environmentalism, for example. |
2
|
|
From the multifarious topics in the volume, a few significant patterns emerge: institutional growth, the fragmentation of modern life, individual retreat into personal niches, and the period of the 1970s as an important turning point. The essays demonstrate that since 1945, both the government and private businesses have undergone enormous expansion. In the face of ever-enlarging political institutions, corporations, media, and technological influences on their lives, Americans have either chosen to or been forced to retreat into their own private realms of family and individualism. People have become less likely in the post-1945 period to define themselves in terms of any single hometown, job, or social category. They have shown patterns of movement and demonstrated a range of personal choices unlike anything the generation before the Baby Boomers had ever known. For most people, the economic and social changes of the 1970s created a pivotal shift. Americans have become increasingly divided by lack of public spaces, telecommuting, internet shopping, and the fragmentation of culture into a dizzying array of choices and perspectives that often leave them cut off from their fellows in society. Yet, according to editor Mark C. Carnes, while "many had feared that Orwellian institutions would crush the individual, ... a major theme of this book is the persistence of individuality and diversity" (p. 7). |
3
|
|
Taken as a whole, the collection is well written and provocative. One slight disadvantage to the volume is the very slim notation within the essays. Bibliographic notes at the end are more extensive for some essays than others. This inconsistency often leaves the reader without references to specific evidence or texts. Understandably, though, this collection seeks to expand the historical view of the period rather than detail everything. It offers much for scholars and students in upper-division college courses. For lower-division college courses or in Advanced Placement courses, teachers may wish to assign only selected chapters. Certainly, anyone teaching post-World War II courses should consult this book and will discover useful material for course reading and discussion. |
4
|
| | |
| California State University, Long Beach |
Donna M. Binkiewicz |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|