A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America

by William Henry Chafe (Editor), Harvard Sitkoff, Beth L. Bailey

This popular and comprehensive anthology presents cogent, provocative articles from differing political perspectives on major issues in postwar America. In addition to selections by leading historians, the editors have assembled first-person accounts of various issues by those who have contributed to the shaping of America's rich history, including Bill Clinton, Joseph McCarthy, Anne Moody, Robin Morgan, and Phyllis Schlafly. Providing a balance of diverse political viewpoints, the documents include the voices of men and women of African American, European American, Asian American, and Latino/as descent.
The seventh edition of A History of Our Time has been extensively revised to incorporate new documents and the most up-to-date articles, which examine such contemporary issues as the Iraq war, political polarization, the new economy, marriage, and the red state/blue state divide. The editors have also added and deleted articles on earlier events in response to changing historiographical trends. New documents cover a broader range of history, addressing not only political issues, but also social, economic, and technological concerns. With lively and enlightening introductions to each section and headnotes that provide a context for the articles, A History of Our Time helps students make sense of the past sixty years of America's sometimes tumultuous but always fascinating history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Essays, American History, Politics

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

William Chafe is an American historian, and currently the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke University.

Reviews

[Jack Fergusson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A breadth of opinions on, and retellings of, the most important social and political events of the post war period up to the 80s. All topics covered are critically important for understanding how we got here.

Almost every prediction for the future made in this book is wrong though hahahahaha. Can’t win ‘em all.

Favourite essays:

Richard Rogin - Joe Kelly has Reached a Boiling Point: In-depth look at the silent majority of middle America. A snapshot of the average man at the time as an example of self-interest politics.

Robing Morgan - Rights of Passage: Witty, passionate, hopeful look into the women’s movement of the 1960’s, centred around the author’s life experience.

Richard Hammer - One Morning in The War: First-person account of the My Lai massacre. The description of the atrocity is especially poignant given the previous essays’ emphasis of the futility of the Vietnam war.

Lillian Helman - Scoundrel Time: The authoritarian fallout of McCarthyism and the author’s moral stand against it, which would not go unpunished.

Lyndon B. Johnson - The Great Society: Wow, this is what presidents used to sound like?

Jimmy Carter - America’s Crisis of Confidence: a great summary of the effects of everything discussed so far on the wills of the American people. Watergate, Vietnam, inflation, and the Kennedy assassinations are all pointed to as sources of disillusionment.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this as a textbook for a "Cold War America" undergraduate History course. I thought it would be worth a re-read 20+ years later with my increased understanding of U.S. politics and international relations. This is NOT a quick or easy read. Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, I was able to get a lot more reading done or this would have taken much longer to get through. While American politics and culture seem to have changed drastically shortly after this book's publication, with the 2000 presidential election followed by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. politics always seem to return back to the mistakes and foolishness of the past.

As editors, Chafe and Sitkoff put together an excellent selection of readings including: "NSC-68: A Report to the National Security Council"; Lyndon B. Johnson's "The Great Society"; Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"; John Kerry's "Vietnam Veterans Against the War"; Jonathan Schell's review of "Watergate"; Vice President Al Gore's address to the UN in 1993 "The Global Environment Crisis".

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to the reading on Clinton's impeachment, for how much it would highlight stunning Republican hypocrisy and lies in light of current affairs. I was not disappointed.

Like all of my books I bought in college, this is now extremely outdated, but the perspectives on more distant history, and the pieces on events now 20+ years old but nearly contemporaneous at the time of publishing, were fascinating.

[Zeta Syanthis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally read this for my America since 1945 class back in high school, but I've kept it since and re-read sections every once in a while. It's very, very well written, and a good book to help ground you in how we got to where we are.