About book Restless Giant: The United States From Watergate To Bush V. Gore (2005)
My final stop on my march through the ages is James T. Patterson's Restless Giant. This volume has a very different feel from both Patterson's previous book Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (Oxford History of the United States) and from the Oxford series in general. This book is more upbeat than the previous; this could be due to the material. Grand Expectations leaves you a little emotionally down in a reflection of the disappointment of the time period. In contrast, Restless Giant is written with the optimism of the 1980s and 1990s, where America, in winning the Cold War, seemed as if it were invincible. The title of the book is a clear spin of one Admiral Yamamoto's statement of America being a sleeping giant that he had awakened by attacking Pearl Harbor. This book is also very different from the rest of the Oxford series because, unlike the earlier volumes, this book is features an era that I actually lived through. I was born in 1981, so my life begins basically in chapter 5 and the rest of the book covers the events of my youth.The story begins in the 1970s in the aftermath of Watergate, Patterson does his best to uncover this brief little era, in which a public first supports President Gerald Ford but begins to soar towards him in as he pardons his dishonored predecessor. Ford finds himself replaced with the humorless Jimmy Carter, who in turn presides over one of the worst economies since the 1930s. In keeping the tradition of the series, Patterson explores this era from all sides. He tells the story of the ordinary people, the social trends, new gadgets, and entertainment that the people enjoyed. It is a decade I am glad to have just missed.The 1980s and my life begin with Ronald Reagan having vanquished Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election, ushered in a new conservative era. Although Patterson points out that even though conservative politics were becoming popular it was hardly a triumph equal to the liberals in 1932. The Democrats still held the House and Reagan while eager to pay lip-service to conservative domestic polices, he was not that interested in promoting them. Reagan chose instead to focus mainly on U.S. foreign policy. Reagan's foreign policy would be credited with winning the Cold War for the United States. Patterson also discusses horrors of the era, such as, the coming of the AIDS epidemic, and some the lighter moments such as the beginning of MTV."Reagan, moreover, was not so doctrinaire a conservative as liberals made out. While fond of damning big government--and of denunciations of 'welfare queens'--he recognized that liberal interest groups had effective lobbies on the Hill, that major New Deal--Great Society social programs--many of them entitlements--were here to stay, and the rights-consciousness had become a powerful political force. He understood that though people said they distrusted government, they expected important services from it."(p.163)The chapter covering the era of George H.W. Bush is known simply as 'Bush 41'. There is a strong argument to be made that of all the presidents to be featured in this book he was the most successful. Unfortunately, he will never be look at in that regard because he is cursed as a one-termer in his lost Bill Clinton in 1992. Although he had 'neo-cons' in his administration, the first President Bush was not as dominated by those view points as his son would be over a decade later.Patterson begins to cover the nineties, which saw the end of the Industrial Age and the beginning of the Information Age. As the first baby boomer to assume the presidency, Bill Clinton gave Americans the impression that they once again had a very young Kennedy like president. Like Kennedy, he makes a lot of errors and also has his triumphs. And also like Kennedy, Patterson covers more of the former than the later. Nevertheless, I feel that Patterson gives Clinton a fair treatment."Extraordinarily well informed about domestic issues, Clinton had impressed many party leaders when he headed the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank that blossomed after 1989 within the ideologically centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Like a great many boomers, he liberal positions on a range of social issues such as abortion and health care, but though he had the populist touch of a campaigner, he did not position himself of the left. A moderate as governor, he distanced himself as a presidential candidate from liberals like Mondale and Dukakis, who had been badly beaten in 1984 and 1988." p.248I was a teenager in the 1990s and my political options were beginning to form. So reading about the Clinton years was like reliving my youth in a way. Of the course the news that dominated the headlines was the Monica Lewinsky affair and the unjustified impeachment of President Clinton by his relentless partisan opponents. Clinton's behavior brought on a lot of his own misery, but his opponents' behavior was worse because they attacked not only Bill Clinton politically, but the office the President as an institution. Clinton in standing up to these attacks, I believe, ended a deterioration of power that had been chipping at the presidency since Nixon resigned*."If Clinton's near-legendary luck had held out--as it might have done if he had been chief executive during pre-Watergate days when reporters had turned a relatively blind eye to the promiscuity of politicians--he would have joined a number of American presidents who had engaged in extramarital relations without being publicly exposed while in office."(p.388)The book ends with the controversial election of President George W. Bush over Vice President Al Gore. The first election that I ever voted in was one that was finished by the United States Supreme Court. I was very disappointed the time because I thought the election was outright stolen. I now, in agreeing with Patterson but having this opinion before, feel that the election had instead just fallen off a bus. (I have often thought about what might have been.)Before ending I have to talk about this one part of a paragraph in chapter 8--the chapter that deals with the culture wars of the 1990s:"Though many publishers and bookshops struggled to break even, fiction by highly talented authors--Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Anne Tyler, Richard Ford, John Updike, and others with smaller name recognition--sold well. So did excellently researched works of non-fiction. James McPherson's prize winning Battle Cry for Freedom (1988), a history of the Civil War era enjoyed huge sales." (p.288)Now Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), I believe I both read and reviewed that book. If memory serves that is the Civil War volume of the Oxford History of the United States series, which is the same series as this very book! David Kennedy, the current editor, must have yelled out 'GO TEAM' when he read those words.All in all, this is a great book. It is interesting reading events that took place in your own life as actually history. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to know more about the time decades preceding the attacks of September 11.
Okay, so it's not an edge-of-your-seat thrillfest.But if you're interested in how your world got so screwed up, Patterson has some answers.From post-interation bussing in the 70s through Carter's good ol' boy cabinet, Reagan's public spending excesses, Bush's attempts to get the economy back on the rails, through the pop culture and electronic boom of Clinton's 90s, Patterson plots social, political and economic maps that show us how we got to where we are.Since I wasn't born or raised in the US, my perspective is very Eurocentric, and this history really helps me understand the geograpic and political world I live in now.
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First Oxford history of the US that I've completely finished, and I enjoyed it well enough. Patterson is a clear writer who organizes the book well. His major theme is that decline narratives about the US in this time period have been persistent, but are mostly inaccurate. He notes that Americans were generally more tolerant, educated, and well-off by 2001 than they were in 1974. The prosperity trend is particularly significant, as Patterson notes that the US became the most powerful and wealthy nation (relative to the rest of the world) in the 1990's. Still, the perception of decline, the disillusionment with politics, and the persistence of culture wars makes people see this era through darkly tinted glasses. I think his case for a positive view of this period is solid in general. He says that even though partisan and ideological battles rage and social conflict/inequality persists, the center of agreed upon values and institutions has continued to hold.Patterson highlights a number of themes in this book: the rise of rights consciousness, continuing racial inequality and tension, women's growing independence, the rise of the religious right and a new conservative coalition, the end of the Cold War, globalization and global democratization, deeper ascendency of liberalism and tolerance, loosening of cultural mores-especially in popular culture, multiculturalism and identity pride, more partisan politics but less partisan people, and inescapable international responsibilities/entanglements. Some sections, such as his treatment of Reagan, are excellent. At times, however, he focuses too much on presidential campaigns that don't always merit extended attention.Compared to Wood and McPherson's Oxford histories, Patterson is pretty thin on primary sources. He sometimes pulls overwhelmingly from a small set of sources, such as James Mann's (admittedly outstanding) "Rise of the Vulcans" or Tom Wolfe's writings. However, Patterson does a much better job with a wider variety of social and cultural issues, especially racial history. This is a good overview of the recent past.Who put the comp in the comp-id-comp-di comp.
—Joseph Stieb
This was my first experience with The Oxford History of the United States series. Originally, I was going to read these volumes in chronological order, but library availability made it more feasible to start with the most recent events chronicled, from 1974 to 2000. If there was anything I learned, it was this: This series is well-researched. The cited footnotes are exhaustive (and exhausting), really increasing the read time so that getting 40 pages of reading in really feels like work. It took 2 weeks to read 425 pages, and I normally read much faster than that. However, it was clear that Patterson did a lot of research from various sources and gave me huge confidence in the accuracy of his chronicle.As a historian, Patterson is mostly neutral, enough so that he borders on being boring. Every now and then, his slant towards an issue comes out. He doesn't hide his disdain well towards conspiracy theorists and refers to Oliver Stone's JFK film as "irresponsible". These moments of biased sentiments are few and far between. He really fixes on the presidents of this time period. Probably 2/3 of the book reflects something from the point of view of white house administration. The good and bad of each president seems fair, and it is quite informative. I knew next to nothing about Gerald Ford and his presidency before this book, which shows why he is such an anonymous figure.The strength of this book to me is that it is a thorough account of recent history. Just earlier this year I was wondering how we became so divided in our partisan politics, how the budget ended up where it did, and a number of other questions. Restless Giant answers all these questions and more. This is dense and not great leisurely reading, but a great read nonetheless for anyone who desires to know more about the last quarter of the 20th century in the United States.
—David
Good read. Provides lots of great insights into the history of the US starting in the 70s through the electoral crisis of 2000. Provides really great insights into recent history. Left me surprised about how much recent history I didn't recall especially including the electoral crisis in 2000. As an example I didn't recall that the Supreme Court case Bush v Gore decision hinged on the fourteenth amendment and the equal protection clause. I found that laughable and hypocritical of a conservative court that I see as usually derisive of the fourteenth amendment. Although much shorter than other books I've reader in the Oxford History series the book does not disappoint. The book is chocked full of great insights into why all the presidents made the decisions they did and the underlying dynamics. I especially liked what I learned about Carter and Clinton. I came away much less admiring of Carter but slightly less disdainful of Clinton's hesitancy to use military force. Also, I didn't realize that HW Bush had already gotten the country involved with Mogadishu before Clinton was elected. Also, even with additional information I didn't like his lack of action in Rwanda. I've decided now I'll likely have to read more history specifically about the presidents - clearly essential for a clear view of what happened during their tenures.
—J.
