William Henry Chafe

This popular and classic text chronicles America's roller-coaster journey through the decades since World War II. Considering both the paradoxes and the possibilities of postwar America, William H. Chafe portrays the significant cultural and political themes that have colored our country's past and present, including issues of race, class, gender, foreign policy, and economic and social reform. He examines such subjects as the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the origins and the end of the Cold War, the culture of the 1970s, the rise of the New Right, the events of September 11th and their aftermath, and various presidencies.… (more)

Chafe offers us a history of the post war period that one would best categorize as "progressive," a history in which the activism of everyday people is the driving engine of change that enables progress on issues of social justice in the halls of power. A historian of both the civil rights and women's movements, his account weaves considerations of race, gender and class into a subtle narrative. From the vantage point he affords us, the self-congratulatory pose of official America during the latter half of the 20th century once again appears suspect. As Richard Dalfiume notes in his review for the JAH, Chafe's history is an effort to invite student of these last six decades of American history to question the extent to which one's prospects in
America are, after all is said and done, still delimited primarily by the accident of one's birth.… (more)