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America After the Cold War: The First Thirty Years
History is filled with surprises, not the least of which, was the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989.
But what about the 30 years following the fall of the Soviet Union? This period of history is still being written. The end of the Cold War is a natural stopping point, but also a natural starting point, an inflection point when one story ends and something new—something unpredictable from what happened before—begins. Nonetheless, events of today have also been profoundly shaped by the past several decades, and we must understand this recent history to understand today’s world. Among other things, our world is a product of:
“New world order” that emerged in the 1990s, in which the United States was the sole remaining superpower on the world stage;
International conflicts, particularly driven by non-state actors and terrorists;
Political polarization that simmered during the Clinton administration and came to a rolling boil in the Obama and Trump administrations;
Golden age of science and technology that has profoundly reshaped our understanding of the universe and the way humans interact with each other; and
Business cycle extremes, with longer booms and a bigger bust, from the “great moderation” in the 1990s through the 2008 financial crisis and the years of slow recovery.
Contemporary life is changing so rapidly that it can be breathtaking to take a step back and look at the cohesive “story” from 1990 to 2019, but this is precisely what America after the Cold War: The First Thirty Years offers. Taught by esteemed professor and Great Courses favorite Dr. Patrick Allitt of Emory University, these 12 fascinating lectures tie the threads of contemporary life together to give you a rich understanding of the United States of America after the threat of annihilating war with the Soviet Union had miraculously passed.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it seemed the United States was poised for a new era of growth, equality, and peace. America after the Cold War: The First Thirty Years walks you through the promise, achievements, and shortcomings of America at the head of a self-proclaimed “new world order.”
Explore America’s Role on the World Stage
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States was the sole remaining military superpower; yet, a look back to the 1990s shows a nation sometimes uneasy with this new role. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, American political leaders debated isolationism versus being the world’s peacekeeper. President George H. W. Bush (the 41st president) chose a middle ground of sending in troops to defend Kuwait but stopping short of regime change in Iraq. And later in the decade, the United States chose not to get involved in conflicts in Bosnia and Rwanda.
Yet after the attack on American soil of 9/11 in 2001, President George W. Bush (the 43rd president) led America in a more active—and at times destructive—role in the world. After reviewing the events, alliances, and sociopolitical background at the time of the attack on September 11th, Professor Allitt walks you through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He takes an objective, historian’s approach to recounting facts, and draws threads together to show how Presidents Obama and Trump either continued or rejected military intervention—and how Syria, for example, remains in tumult. In some ways, the story of America is the story of our leadership, for both good and ill.
Witness an Unprecedented Amount of Change
In parallel to America’s military interventions abroad, our country was experiencing an astonishing amount of change on the domestic front. Professor Allitt takes you beyond the big headline events—O. J. Simpson, Clinton’s impeachment trial, the 2000 election fiasco, the 2008 financial crisis, health care reform, the Mueller investigation—and shows you the significant trends that have shaped our society, such as:
Education: How does our public education system stack up against education systems throughout the world? What policies have we implemented and how have they worked? Consider the following programs: “No Child Left Behind,” the “Race to the Top,” charter schools, and more.
Science: From the Hubble Telescope to the human genome to emergent technologies, the past 30 years have seen a remarkable flourishing in STEM fields.
Technology: The smart phone, social media, navigation apps, disruptive online enterprises, and the emerging surveillance state have transformed how we interact with each other and the world.
Energy Independence: The controversial development of shale oil and natural gas has substantially freed the United States from reliance on energy imports from despotic and repressive regimes, while also making fossils fuels harder to resist.
Environment: From the Kyoto Protocol to the Fukushima disaster, and from “cap and trade” policy efforts to policies promoting solar and wind power, the relationship between industry, energy, and climate change i...
But what about the 30 years following the fall of the Soviet Union? This period of history is still being written. The end of the Cold War is a natural stopping point, but also a natural starting point, an inflection point when one story ends and something new—something unpredictable from what happened before—begins. Nonetheless, events of today have also been profoundly shaped by the past several decades, and we must understand this recent history to understand today’s world. Among other things, our world is a product of:
“New world order” that emerged in the 1990s, in which the United States was the sole remaining superpower on the world stage;
International conflicts, particularly driven by non-state actors and terrorists;
Political polarization that simmered during the Clinton administration and came to a rolling boil in the Obama and Trump administrations;
Golden age of science and technology that has profoundly reshaped our understanding of the universe and the way humans interact with each other; and
Business cycle extremes, with longer booms and a bigger bust, from the “great moderation” in the 1990s through the 2008 financial crisis and the years of slow recovery.
Contemporary life is changing so rapidly that it can be breathtaking to take a step back and look at the cohesive “story” from 1990 to 2019, but this is precisely what America after the Cold War: The First Thirty Years offers. Taught by esteemed professor and Great Courses favorite Dr. Patrick Allitt of Emory University, these 12 fascinating lectures tie the threads of contemporary life together to give you a rich understanding of the United States of America after the threat of annihilating war with the Soviet Union had miraculously passed.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it seemed the United States was poised for a new era of growth, equality, and peace. America after the Cold War: The First Thirty Years walks you through the promise, achievements, and shortcomings of America at the head of a self-proclaimed “new world order.”
Explore America’s Role on the World Stage
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States was the sole remaining military superpower; yet, a look back to the 1990s shows a nation sometimes uneasy with this new role. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, American political leaders debated isolationism versus being the world’s peacekeeper. President George H. W. Bush (the 41st president) chose a middle ground of sending in troops to defend Kuwait but stopping short of regime change in Iraq. And later in the decade, the United States chose not to get involved in conflicts in Bosnia and Rwanda.
Yet after the attack on American soil of 9/11 in 2001, President George W. Bush (the 43rd president) led America in a more active—and at times destructive—role in the world. After reviewing the events, alliances, and sociopolitical background at the time of the attack on September 11th, Professor Allitt walks you through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He takes an objective, historian’s approach to recounting facts, and draws threads together to show how Presidents Obama and Trump either continued or rejected military intervention—and how Syria, for example, remains in tumult. In some ways, the story of America is the story of our leadership, for both good and ill.
Witness an Unprecedented Amount of Change
In parallel to America’s military interventions abroad, our country was experiencing an astonishing amount of change on the domestic front. Professor Allitt takes you beyond the big headline events—O. J. Simpson, Clinton’s impeachment trial, the 2000 election fiasco, the 2008 financial crisis, health care reform, the Mueller investigation—and shows you the significant trends that have shaped our society, such as:
Education: How does our public education system stack up against education systems throughout the world? What policies have we implemented and how have they worked? Consider the following programs: “No Child Left Behind,” the “Race to the Top,” charter schools, and more.
Science: From the Hubble Telescope to the human genome to emergent technologies, the past 30 years have seen a remarkable flourishing in STEM fields.
Technology: The smart phone, social media, navigation apps, disruptive online enterprises, and the emerging surveillance state have transformed how we interact with each other and the world.
Energy Independence: The controversial development of shale oil and natural gas has substantially freed the United States from reliance on energy imports from despotic and repressive regimes, while also making fossils fuels harder to resist.
Environment: From the Kyoto Protocol to the Fukushima disaster, and from “cap and trade” policy efforts to policies promoting solar and wind power, the relationship between industry, energy, and climate change i...
115 pages, Audible Audio
First published February 28, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 9, 2020
America After the Cold War: The First Thirty Years is a good introduction to modern US History, but it is clear that Professor Allitt is not entirely comfortable talking about this era. Some of his remarks are superficial, and it is clear that he either did not read, or did not give consideration to, sympathetic or third party accounts of the Iraq and Afghan wars. In that, he seems like a well informed editorialist. To be entirely fair, the views he shares here are views I shared with him a decade ago, even half a decade ago. I've only grown less harshly critical when I studied under, met with, and worked with people involved in those decisions, read their words, and listened to their side. Impractical for most, and this wasn't his key area of expertise anyways.
Allitt himself is a good man, a capable instructor, and knows some parts of this era exceedingly well (though he does have the good excuse of having been alive during the entire period). I suppose that's the root problem. He's a good instructor teaching a course he doesn't have mastery over, and you'll see some issues show up given what he chooses to discuss. I would have liked to hear more about social and economic changes, as well as more on institutional transformations. Maybe some focus on the US' relationship to the external world outside of the field of war?
Honestly, these past thirty years could have been one of his largest courses, in large part due to the sheer enormity and immediacy of these concerns, and very little distance to provide perspective on what is, and is not, defining. Instead we get a handful of lectures, under 6 hours of material, and the feeling like we've taken a first step, rather than received an a complete survey.
It's good, but frustratingly surface-level and outside of the author's principal area of expertise.
78/100
Allitt himself is a good man, a capable instructor, and knows some parts of this era exceedingly well (though he does have the good excuse of having been alive during the entire period). I suppose that's the root problem. He's a good instructor teaching a course he doesn't have mastery over, and you'll see some issues show up given what he chooses to discuss. I would have liked to hear more about social and economic changes, as well as more on institutional transformations. Maybe some focus on the US' relationship to the external world outside of the field of war?
Honestly, these past thirty years could have been one of his largest courses, in large part due to the sheer enormity and immediacy of these concerns, and very little distance to provide perspective on what is, and is not, defining. Instead we get a handful of lectures, under 6 hours of material, and the feeling like we've taken a first step, rather than received an a complete survey.
It's good, but frustratingly surface-level and outside of the author's principal area of expertise.
78/100
May 21, 2022
What it says on the tin can. A short, and thus obviously at times frustratingly superficial, look at US history over the first three decades since the end of the Cold War. If you're looking for lots of depth and detail, you are of course unlikely to find it in a course this brief, but Allitt offers a good overview.
September 17, 2022
A good (and balanced/non-partisan) overview of the 1990-2020 period. I lived through this and remember most of it pretty clearly, and nothing was jarringly badly presented or missing. For someone in their 20s or early 30s (or not from the US), this is a great overview of the period. For me a lot of tech-specific stuff was even more relevant (crypto wars 2.0 in the 90s, cyberpunks, more about dotcom and Internet infrastructure, rise of SaaS and FAANG, Microsoft antitrust, comeback of Apple, rise of mobile, rise of AI, rise of social media/monopolies, cryptocurrency, crypto wars 3.0), but that's specialty interest.
May 12, 2023
Other Great Courses cover centuries of history in not many more lectures. So why does this particular course, which spans 30 years, seem so frenetic and rushed? Well, a *lot* of significant things happened in these years. And it’s almost as if Dr. Allitt tries to make passing reference to every major event, development, and personality from the last three decades of American history. As such, at times, it seems like he’s just reading a list. An introductory survey of this topic easily warrants twice as many lectures. Overall, this one was a disappointment.
May 12, 2022
Short but insightful; it's fun looking into a mirror of sorts and to reflect on where America has been. As a 26 year old, much of this book covers events that I was either absent for or too young to remember. Other events are among my lived experiences but viewing them in the rear view mirror helps me adjust my perspective for the better. Dr. Allitt is a great narrator and provides balanced, appropriate commentary.
June 10, 2022
Mostly just a list of events, most of which you will already be aware of.
July 1, 2022
A standard overview. Gets 4 stars instead of 3 for being balanced on controversial contemporary topics (education, inequality, race, foreign policy).
October 28, 2022
More a summary than an analysis.
October 30, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. I feel old because I knew most everyone discussed and remember most of the events, but I'd forgotten much of this and appreciated the refresher.
February 1, 2024
I’d come across Professor Patrick Allitt before, whilst working my way through a number of the excellent American history courses available on Audible. Born in England, I continue to find a little incongruous to listen to his Derbyshire lilt talking authoritatively on this subject. But his enthusiasm and obvious knowledge do tend to make his lectures compulsively listenable.
The only issue I have with this set is that the history is just too recent and as a result I found that, for the most part, it simply provided a reiteration of news I’d already absorbed. To be fair, Allitt does a pretty good job of refreshing my memory on this recent period and he also provides some additional insight and analysis new to me. But overall I found this set to provide pretty slim pickings compared to other courses I’ve listened to.
The only issue I have with this set is that the history is just too recent and as a result I found that, for the most part, it simply provided a reiteration of news I’d already absorbed. To be fair, Allitt does a pretty good job of refreshing my memory on this recent period and he also provides some additional insight and analysis new to me. But overall I found this set to provide pretty slim pickings compared to other courses I’ve listened to.
August 8, 2025
Four stars if you like this sort of thing. Target audience is roughly one or two generations behind my graybeard status. Those who might benefit from a brisk, surface-level recitation of political (are there any other kind?) events of the past thirty years. Its virtue is in its anodyne avoidance of attaching value judgements to anything. A notable exception to this is in how both the war in Afghanistan and the second Iraq war were characterized as disasters, which I believe is a characterization taken as fact by most people now. Probably not all people.
March 15, 2025
A very comprehensive overview of this time period in American history. Sometimes the events that occurred after the Cold War and before I was born can get a bit hazy, but this really set it straight for me. I am no history buff so I was uninterested in specifics that I would likely end up forgetting in a week. Instead I got a general overview of important U.S events, both on our soil and beyond, that all Americans should be aware of.
December 6, 2022
A good Birds Eye view of the last 30 some odd years. Thorough in its breadth and superficial in its depth.
March 24, 2023
Interesting synopsis of 1990-2020 (released right before CoVid). Without much distance from later events, it feels more summary than true critical history, but I think this identifies good trends.
July 14, 2023
This isnt what I thought it was unfortunately. I liked the beginning but then the middle and end was all over the place
March 6, 2025
Patrick Allitt is among my favorite Great Course lecturers! I especially enjoyed hearing the perspective of a professional historian, of the events I lived through, but didn't always understand!
February 9, 2024
as someone post grad with a political science degree,, I will simply never speak ill of the great courses series
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews