1st Edition

Modern America: A Documentary History of the Nation Since 1945 A Documentary History of the Nation Since 1945

By Lex Donaldson Copyright 2007
    360 Pages
    by Routledge

    360 Pages
    by Routledge

    This primary source reader assembles key documents and firsthand accounts that are emblematic of American life from the end of World War II to the present. Designed to complement a core text for a typical post-1945 U.S. history course, the book offers conciseness and selectivity with balanced coverage of domestic and foreign, societal and cultural issues grouped together chronologically. The readings afford students compelling and sometimes startling insights into the nation's postwar adaptation to its new position of global power and responsibility, wealth, and rapid social change; on through years of energy and ambition, conflict and tragedy, to the post-Vietnam malaise and the rise of Ronald Reagan, the frenzied nineties, and the arrival of the new millennium. Each chapter includes an introduction that sets the documents in historical context, a biographical sketch of a significant person of the time, study questions, and suggestions for further reading.

    The first edition of "The Political Economy of Chinese Socialism" reconceptualized the political economy of China by highlighting the changing character of urban-rural and state-society conflicts in the era of Mao Zedong's leadership and in the contemporary post-Mao reforms. The economic and social crises that engulfed China - and indeed much of the rest of the socialist world - in the late 1980s, culminating in the 1989 democratic movement and its suppression, stimulated a rethinking of central propositions of the first edition. It particularly led the author to inquire anew into the meaning of socio-political as well as economic development in a populous and poor agrarian nation. This volume, then, assesses the economic performance and social consequences of China's political economy over four decades, with a focus on China's countryside and city-countryside relations. In addition to a reconceptualization and updating of the introductory chapter, there is a new chapter, "The Social Origins and Limits of the Chinese Democratic Movement".

    Biography

    Gary Donaldson