Unit 14 - Contemporary America 1960-1992

Ch. 41-43

Objective:

1.

Unit Themes:

1. The 1950s
   • Emergence of the modern civil rights movement
   • The affluent society and "the other America"
   • Consensus and conformity: suburbia and middle-class America
   • Social critics, nonconformists, and cultural rebels
   • Impact of changes in science, technology, and medicine
2. The Turbulent 1960s
   • From the New Frontier to the Great Society
   • Expanding movements for civil rights
   • Cold War confrontations: Asia, Latin America, and Europe
   • Beginning of Détente
   • The antiwar movement and the counterculture
3. Political and Economics at the end of the Twentieth Century
   • The election of 1968 and the "Silent Majority"
   • Nixon's challenges: Vietnam, China, and Watergate
   • Changes in the American economy: the energy crisis, deindustrialization, and the service economy
   • The New Right and the Reagan revolution
   • End of the Cold War
4. Society and Culture at the End of the Twentieth Century
   • Demographic changes: surge of immigration after 1965, Sunbelt migration, and the graying of America
   • Revolutions in biotechnology, mass communication, and computers
   • Politics in a multicultural society
5. The United States in the Post-Cold War World
   • Globalization and the American economy
   • Unilateralism vs multilateralism in foreign policy
   • Domestic and foreign terrorism
   • Environmental issues in a global context

Links

We Didn't Start the Fire Video

Nixon: Smoking Gun Tape

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