The Columbia History of Post-World War II America (review)

The period of American history stretching from the end of World War II to the present is large, complex, and getting more so all the time. Both the size of this volume (over 500 pages) and its imposing title might suggest an attempt at a comprehensive or "definitive" history of this monumental era, but this book is actually nearly the antithesis of that. Most of the nineteen essays here eschew traditional approaches and instead lean towards innovative and unusual treatments, often combining or juxtaposing familiar themes in novel ways. The largest parts of the book are divided into "culture" and "politics" essays, but even those categories are frequently blurred, and an attention to political economy, corporate capitalism, and technology permeates the entire volume.

A quick look at the "culture" section reveals something of the breadth and tenor of the entire volume. The first essay explores the recent history of America's "public space," focusing on the democratization of access to public space as a result of the civil rights movements and its simultaneous diminution and privatization in a world of suburbs, automobiles, and shopping malls. Two articles examine the impact of technological change on popular music and the visual images that shaped postwar American culture, while another looks at the interaction of "commerce" and cultural criticism, focusing on pop art. Yet another describes the confluence of military and sport influences in creating a "warrior" culture among post-war American males. Even more conventional essays—those dealing with American attitudes towards work, death and dying, or home, family, and children—are unusually capacious and attuned to the interaction of technology, economy, politics, and social history.

Many of the "politics" articles are in the same vein, exploring, for example, interactions among religion, gender, education, and politics, or themes like the impact of television on American ideas of democracy. An especially genre-bending study looks at the losing battle fought by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Walter Reuther against what they saw as licentious behavior and individualistic self-interest among workers and African Americans in support of movements based on a kind of communitarian or "republican" moral virtue.

As in any collection of this type, different readers will surely find some essays more suited to their tastes and interests than others. Very occasionally attempts to be innovative feel quirky or idiosyncratic. Overall, however, both the quality of these essays and the level of interaction between the authors are exceptionally high. Paradox and irony are apparent everywhere: Outlets for individual expression and identity multiply even as "Big Brother" government and corporate "big business" flourish; technological change is almost always multi-dimensional; capitalism is both liberating and destructive; the working class and ghetto cultures that Reuther and King found so problematic were also expressions of freedom, democracy, and individualism.

Students and scholars of American Studies should find this book, with its "cultural" focus and its mixing and blurring of traditional disciplinary boundaries, an unusually congenial and fruitful exploration of recent American history.