In the spirit of idealism, but often acrimony, Americans enjoyed prosperity, promoted social justice, expanded the Liberal Welfare State, freed personal expression, and waged Cold War abroad. This seminar examines the extraordinary changes and contradictions marking those turbulent decades. It begins by considering how the Cold War, family life, and consumerism created an outwardly stable, but inwardly tense national culture in the 1950s. It finally explores how this tumultuous era ironically revived political conservatism, while leaving American life changed irreversibly.
Assignments combine historical monographs with original literary and media sources.