Acknowledgments xi Prelude: The Imperial Logic of the American Dream xiii Part I The Postwar Decades 1 1 Victory and Anxiety: World War and Cold War, 1945-1962 3 Colony to Colonizer: American Rise to Globalism 4 Wages of War: Triumph over Germany and Japan 5 First Frost: Dawn of the Cold War 9 Seeing Red: The Cold War at Home 12 Playing with Dominoes: Cold War Hot Spots 17 Cold War Showdown: Cuba 19 culture watch: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955/1956) 23 2 Conformity and Rebellion: American Culture and Politics, 1945-1963 27 Best Worst Time: Early Postwar Years 28 Boom! The Postwar Economy Explodes 29 Rising Suburbs: Life on the Crabgrass Frontier 32 Restless in the Promised Land: Suburbia''s Critics 35 Free Movement: Early Civil Rights Struggles 40 Big Bangs: 1950s Youth Culture 45 culture watch: A Raisin in the Sun (1959) 49 Part II The Long 1960s 53 3 Confidence and Agitation: The American Empire at High Tide, 1960-1965 55 Dishing: The Kitchen Debate as Domestic Squabble 56 American Prince: JFK 58 Grand Expectations: The Birth of "the Sixties" 60 Overcoming: The Civil Rights Movement Crests 61 Voices: Popular Culture of the Early 1960s 64 Countercurrents: Civil Rights Skeptics 65 Lone Star Rising: The LBJ Moment 69 Flanking Maneuver: Johnson in Vietnam 73 Fissures: Democratic Fault Lines 75 culture watch: "The Times They Are AÂ]Changin''" (1964) 80 4 Fulfillment and Frustration: An Empire in Conflict, 1965-1974 86 Over the Moon: Winning the Space Race 87 Imperial Quagmire: The Vietnam Wars 89 Down from the Mountaintop: The Civil Rights Movement 93 Turning Point: 1968 96 Right Rising: The Return of Richard Nixon 99 Women''s Work: The Feminist Movement 102 Rainbows: Rights Revolutions 105 Grim Peace: Endgame in Vietnam 108 Crooked Justice: The Triumph and Fall of Nixon 109 culture watch: Easy Rider (1969) 113 5 Experimentation and Exhaustion: Political Culture of the Sixties, 1965-1975 119 The Great Divide: Establishment and Counterculture 120 (de)Construction Sites: The Rise of Postmodernism 125 System Failure: The Reorganization of Hollywood 126 Medium Dominant: Television 128 Fit Print: Publishing 130 Kingdom of Rebels: The Reign of Rock 132 culture watch: "Chuckles the Clown Bites the Dust," The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1975) 140 Interlude 144 6 Reassessment and Nostalgia: The American Empire in the Age of Limits, 1973-1980 144 1973: Hinge of American History 145 Apocalypse Now: The New Gloom 150 Depressingly Decent: Ford and Carter 153 Solitary Refinement: The Me Decade 159 Body Politics: Gender and Its Discontents 163 Rebellion and Revival: Pop Culture of the Late Seventies 166 Right Signal: The Conservative Turn 168 culture watch: Taxi Driver (1976) 175 Part III Indian Summer 181 7 Revival and Denial: The American Empire on Borrowed Time, 1981-1991 183 Right Man: The Age of Reagan 184 Making the Cut: Reaganomics 187 Breaking Ice: Reagan and the Cold War 191 Headwinds: SecondÂ]Term Blues 193 For God''s Sake: Social Conservatism 196 Left Ahead: The Legacy of the Sixties in the Eighties 197 Swan Song: Reagan and the Soviets 201 41: The (First) Bush Years 203 Freely Intervening: United States as Sole Superpower 207 culture watch: The House on Mango Street (1984) 210 8 Innovation and Nostalgia: The Culture of the Eighties, 1981-1989 215 Small Transformations: The Rise of the Personal Computer 216 Consuming Pleasures: Old Fashions, New Gadgets 220 Seeing Music: Music Television, or MTV 225 Yo! African American Culture and the Birth of HipÂ-Hop 227 Bourne in the USA: Dissident Voices 231 culture watch: "The Message" (1982) 233 9 Prosperity and Distraction: The Post-Cold War Era, 1991-2001 238 Opposing Justice: The Hill-Thomas Imbroglio 239 Not Black and White: The Changing Colors of Race 242 Thug Life: Gangsta Rap 244 Running Saga: The O. J. Simpson Case 246 Family Matters: Demography and the Assault on Patriarchy 247 Culture War: The Fall of George Bush 250 Comeback Kid: The Rises and Falls of Bill Clinton 252 La Vida Loca: The Roaring Nineties 258 Tech Sec: Toward the Internet 260 Insulated Intervention: US Foreign Policy 264 Recount: The 2000 Election 267 culture watch: Exile in Guyville (1993) 271 Part IV Present Tense 277 10 Comfort and Dread: The American Empire in Decline, 2001-present 279 Towering Collapse: 9/11 280 Unknown Unknowns: The Iraq War 285 Spending Resources: The Debt Society 290 Bushed: Second-Term Blues 291 Downloading: Twenty-first Century Pop Culture 294 Posting: Web 2.0 298 Freely Unequal: The Tottering US Economy 299 Audacious Hopes: The Rise of Barack Obama 303 Future History: The Present as Past 310 culture watch: "Made in America," The Sopranos (2007) 311 Postlude: The Ends of the American Century 316 Index 318.