For the 1970s through 1980s, I can’t say that I’m very familiar with this time period partially due to not liking this time period. I personally think that getting to where we are now is much more interesting. Maybe the reason that is the case is because at this point in history the world has how I would say settled down after the world got smaller. Reading Judith Stein’s “Pivotal Decade” didn’t really change my stance.
The world at some point seems so much smaller now where everything affects everyone, which is both good and bad. For America, we can see how food is affected where prices can change drastically depending on whether or not India’s harvests were well. It seems like back then, such things didn’t have much of an effect as they do now simply due to nations being closed off and keeping to themselves.
In the 1970s, we are now seeing how much Roosevelt’s New Deal has had an effect on the American government. We can see the groundwork being laid out in Eric Rauchway’s work, “Great Depression and the New Deal”. Regardless of which side the government decides to choose, Republican or Democrat, the government has a much more involved role to play in America. We see this with how Nixon and his administration constantly discuss what to do about product prices like oil and food as they change due to supply and demand both domestically and foreginly. I think that is probably one of the more noteworthy things to come out of the Roosevelt administration.
Sorry you didn’t enjoy the reading, or the ’70s/80s! One inherent problem in history, I think, is that to “get where we are now” we need to understand the past, including those aspects we find less attractive or boring. You’re right, I think, to emphasize the relative consensus over the New Deal amongst both Democrats and Republicans in the middle of the 20th C, as well as some of the changes today… but how does she say the former contributed to a “great compression,” while more recent policies have led to “an age of inequality”?
3/4