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  • - [Instructor] From our first lesson

  • focusing on the migration of indigenous people

  • to the landmass that today comprises the United States,

  • we've made it all the way to the present,

  • a journey in time of more than 15,000 years.

  • We've looked most closely at the last 500 years

  • starting with the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.

  • Now, in this last unit we're focused

  • just on the last 40 years of American history

  • from 1980 until the present.

  • How can we examine something

  • that's so close to us in time?

  • We're still in this era.

  • It doesn't have a name,

  • not like the Gilded Age or the Revolutionary Era,

  • at least not yet.

  • Maybe this is the post-Cold War era

  • or the post-9/11 era?

  • Maybe it will be defined by the changes

  • brought by technology

  • and we'll call it the Information Age.

  • Trying to think historically about the present

  • gives us a better understanding

  • of what it was like to live in the past,

  • to not know what was coming next

  • or how to interpret all the complex threads

  • of politics, society, and culture

  • weaving together around you.

  • Life is messy and confusing.

  • We don't know if we're living in a tragic era

  • or a triumphant one,

  • neither did the people who lived in 1940

  • or 1860 or 1770.

  • So years from now when historians

  • write about the period from 1980 to 2020

  • in the United States

  • what will they say?

  • Well, let's pretend for a few minutes

  • that we are those historians from the future.

  • Maybe we're living on a space station

  • a few hundred years from now

  • enjoying a Raktajino by the Replicator

  • and discussing the United States

  • at the turn of the 21st century.

  • Would we be discussing a golden age or a dark period?

  • Let's apply some of our historical

  • thinking skills to this era

  • and see if we can determine

  • what effects changes in this period had

  • on American national identity.

  • First, let's talk about America's role in the world.

  • In 1980, the United States was still locked

  • in a Cold War with the Soviet Union,

  • and when Ronald Reagan took over as president

  • he moved the country away from the policy of Detente,

  • or relaxation of tension,

  • kind of live and let live with the soviets

  • that was pursued in the 1970s

  • towards a more active, anticommunist stance.

  • The end of the decade saw the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  • So after more then 40 years of foreign policy

  • that was aimed at containing communism

  • and the influence of the Soviet Union,

  • capitalism and democracy were now

  • the dominant economic and political systems,

  • and the United States was the world's lone superpower.

  • After the Cold War ended

  • it wasn't immediately clear

  • what the new US role in the world should be.

  • Should it return to an isolationist stance

  • like it had before World War II.

  • Should it serve as the world's police officer

  • keeping the peace and countering the actions

  • of hostile powers that might try to arise.

  • During the 1990s, the United States had

  • a few limited engagements abroad

  • and the Gulf War, the United States defended Kuwait

  • from an Iraqi invasion,

  • and it sent troops to Kosovo

  • as part of a NATO peacekeeping force.

  • But the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001

  • on the World Trade Center in New York City

  • and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

  • began a new era of American foreign policy.

  • US President George W. Bush articulated

  • what's been called the Bush Doctrine

  • which asserted that the United States

  • has the right to secure itself against countries

  • that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups.

  • So under this doctrine, the United States

  • went to war with Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003

  • after those countries refused to surrender

  • Osama bin Laden and the terrorists responsible

  • for September 11th.

  • The war in Afghanistan became the longest war

  • in US history continuing through 2019.

  • At the end of this era from 1980 to 2020,

  • Americans were continuing to debate

  • the proper US role in the world.

  • Should the United States withdraw from wars abroad

  • to save the lives of American troops

  • and the massive budget expenditures of war?

  • Or would leaving the Middle East

  • further destabilize the region

  • and lead to even bigger problems in the future?

  • Some questions that we might think about

  • in the broader scope of US history,

  • how does the Bush doctrine compare to

  • earlier presidential doctrines on foreign policy

  • like the Nixon Doctrine, the Truman Doctrine,

  • or even the Monroe Doctrine?

  • And how does the war in Afghanistan

  • compare to the United States' second longest war,

  • the war in Vietnam.

  • The end of the Cold War

  • and the rise of the war on terror

  • weren't the only major changes in this time period.

  • There were also far-reaching social changes.

  • How work was done,

  • how much people were paid for it,

  • and who did that work.

  • In the late 20th century,

  • the emergence of the personal computer and the internet

  • made it possible to communicate

  • and to do business all over the world in an instant.

  • At the same time, barriers to trade fell between countries.

  • In 1994, the United States signed

  • the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA

  • to reduce or eliminate tariffs on trade goods

  • between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

  • The growing international interdependence of business

  • and the mixing of cultures that business

  • carries along with it is called globalization.

  • But the availability of cheap goods and cheap labor

  • that globalization made possible

  • also had some economic consequences for American workers.

  • Manufacturing generally moved overseas

  • to take advantage of lower wages and regulations

  • and union membership fell to a record low.

  • Meanwhile, the share of Americans

  • working in service-oriented jobs rose.

  • The largest employer in the United States

  • in 2019 was Walmart.

  • Wages have stagnated for low

  • and middle class American workers

  • while wages have soared for the richest Americans.

  • A study by the federal reserve found that

  • although the total net worth of US households

  • more than quadrupled between 1989 and 2018,

  • most of those gains were for the wealthy,

  • with the top 10% of households controlling

  • 64% of overall wealth.

  • The top 1% alone controlled 32%.

  • Another social change of the late 20th

  • and early 21st century was the growth of immigration.

  • The 1965 immigration act ended

  • national quotas in immigration

  • which had barred immigration for most countries

  • other than Western Europe.

  • As a result, immigration from Latin America,

  • Asia and Africa grew

  • changing the racial demographics of the United States.

  • Some of the biggest questions of American politics

  • at the end of this era

  • concerned the effects of globalization and immigration.

  • Putting this in a broader historical context

  • we might ask how did the developments

  • in this time period compare with

  • say the Second Industrial Revolution in the Gilded Age

  • when new manufacturing technology opened up

  • many new factory jobs,

  • and lured many immigrants to American cities,

  • but also bred great inequality of wealth.

  • Politics in this period also differed sharply

  • from the era that came before it.

  • From 1932 to 1980,

  • liberal ideas had dominated American politics

  • that government should be active

  • in securing the welfare of people,

  • and that taxation should pay for those initiatives.

  • But there was a growing conservative movement

  • starting in the 1960s

  • and Ronald Reagan's election in 1980

  • began a period of limiting government regulation

  • and lowering taxes.

  • And when democrat Bill Clinton took office in 1993,

  • he largely adopted that same stance.

  • He declared that the era of big government is over

  • and reduced welfare benefits significantly.

  • The 1990s saw the emergence of the culture wars.

  • Battles over the growing multiculturalism,

  • secularism, and cultural acceptance

  • of non-traditional marriage and family relationships.

  • Many conservative Christians feared that

  • the traditional American nuclear family

  • with Christian, heterosexual married parents

  • was disappearing.

  • Meanwhile, liberal progressive celebrated

  • the growing acceptance of LGBTQ citizens

  • in diversity and public life.

  • This was also a time of bitter partisan divisions

  • with citizens not only more strongly

  • identifying with one party

  • but increasingly vilifying members of the other party

  • is immoral or unpatriotic.

  • To put this in a broader historical context

  • we might ask, do these partisan divisions

  • suggest that American national identity

  • was fractured beyond repair

  • or that a party realignment was underway?

  • How does this period compare with the 1850s

  • when the beliefs of the north and south diverged

  • sharply over the institution of slavery?

  • These are very difficult question

  • and I'm glad we're here in the 23rd century

  • enjoying the benefits of hindsight

  • to assess that strange period from 1980 to 2020.

- [Instructor] From our first lesson

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