Unit 4: Contemporary Culture

Grade 9 US History From 1877 Unit 4: Contemporary Culture • 1960 - Present

Examining the history of our own time presents special difficulties. The historian ordinarily has the benefit of hindsight but never less so than in examining the last few decades. Furthermore, the closer we approach the present the less likely it is that historians will be able to transcend their own biases. Historians can never attain complete objectivity, but they tend to fall shortest of the goal when they deal with current or very recent events. For example, writers and teachers of history who voted for a particular candidate will likely view that candidate’s action in office more sympathetically than a historian who voted the other way.

There can be little doubt, however, that in global politics the role of the United States has led to seismic changes that every student, as a person approaching voting age, should understand. The detente with the People’s Republic of China under Nixon’s presidency represents the beginning of a new era, though the outcome is still far from determined. Perhaps more epochal is the collapse of the Soviet Union, the overthrow of communist governments in Eastern Europe, and the consequent end of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. Students can understand little about American attempts to adjust to a post-bipolar world without comprehending these momentous events.

In politics, students ought to explore how the political balance has tilted away from liberalism since 1968. They should also study the ability of the political and constitutional system to check and balance itself against potential abuses as exemplified in the Watergate and Iran-Contra affairs. They can hone their ability to think about the American political system by exploring and evaluating debates over government’s role in the economy, environmental protection, social welfare, international trade policies, and more.

No course in American history should reach a conclusion without considering some of the major social and cultural changes of the most recent decades. Among them, several may claim precedence: first, the reopening of the nation’s gates to immigrants that for the first time come primarily from Asia and Central America; second, renewed reform movements that promote environmental, feminist, and civil rights agendas that lost steam in the 1970s; third, the resurgence of religious evangelicalism; fourth, the massive alteration in the character of work through technological innovation and corporate reorganization; and lastly, the continuing struggle for e pluribus unum amid contentious debates over national vs. group identity, group rights vs. individual rights, and the overarching goal of making social and political practice conform to the nation’s founding principles.

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