Designed to encourage critical thinking about history, the Major Problems in American History series introduces students to both primary sources and analytical essays on important topics in U.S. history. This reader serves as the primary anthology for the Post-1945 U.S. History course. Comprehensive topical coverage includes the Cold War; the cultural and political movements of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s; Vietnam; the return of conservatism; globalization; life in the new information age; the post-Cold War era; and race and ethnicity. The Fourth Edition extends its consideration of the period since the 1960s by adding two entirely new chapters and substantially reconfiguring others. As a result, this edition devotes far more attention to the 1970s, a period that has received especially notable scholarly scrutiny in the last few years, and to the post-Cold War period. All in all, three-quarters of the essays and more than 60 percent of the documents are new for this edition. Key pedagogical elements of the Major Problems format have been retained: chapter introductions, headnotes, and suggested readings.
