The Cultural Left and the Reagan Era: U.S. Protest and Central American Revolution

by Nick Witham

Overview

The Reagan era is usually seen as an era of unheralded prosperity, and as a high-watermark of Republican success. President Ronald Reagan's belief in "Reaganomics", his media-friendly sound-bites and "can do" personality have come to define the era. However, this was also a time of domestic protest and unrest. Under Reagan the US was directly involved in the revolutions which were sweeping the Central Americas- El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala -and in Nicaragua Reagan armed the Contras who fought the Sandinistas. This book seeks to show how the left within the US reacted and protested against these events. The Nation, Verso Books and the Guardian exploded in popularity, riding high on the back of popular anti-interventionist sentiment in America, while the film-maker Oliver Stone led a group of directors making films with a radical left-wing message. The author shows how the1980s in America were a formative cultural period for the anti-Reaganites as well as the Reaganites, and in doing so charts a new history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857738394
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/24/2015
Series:	Library of Modern American History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Nick Witham is Senior Lecturer in American Social and Cultural History at Canterbury Christ Church University and the author of several articles on filmmakers, writers and left-wing politics in 1980s America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Rethinking the Cultural Left in the Reagan Era

Section I : Intellectual Culture
1. Walter LaFeber, Gabriel Kolko and the Activist History of American Empire
2. Verso Books and Transnational Solidarity

Section II : Press Culture
3. The Nation and Nicaragua
4. The Guardian, the Solidarity Movement and El Salvador

Section III
5. Anti-Interventionist Cinema at Hollywood's Margins
6. International Feminism, Documentary Filmmaking and Central American Revolutionary Struggle

Conclusion ; Rememebering Central America Activism

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

‘Iwan Morgan's Reagan is a fast-paced narrative that is superbly organized and judiciously argued about the life and times of America's 40th president. Before going elsewhere, both academics and general audiences should first read this exceptional volume as the introduction to this complex topic.’

Irwin F. Gellman

‘As one might expect from such an influential and controversial personality Ronald Regan has been the subject of much biography, running from the meticulous but essentially critical works of Lou Cannon to the bizarre biographical fantasy by Edmund Morris. Iwan Morgan’s new life, benefiting from the elapse of time, the fading of old resentments and the appearance of rival subjects of both admiration and disdain, stands every chance of emerging as the standard life. Morgan has brought to its writing formidable but also thoughtful and critical research and a lively style. His research has given him a sure grasp of Reagan’s improbable journey from small town Middle West, through Hollywood’s Golden Age into national and international politics. Morgan’s greatest virtue is his fairness. He does justice to Reagan’s authentic faith in the essential virtue of America and to the individual, non–ideological quality of his conservative faith. At the same time he is not afraid to point out the contradictions in Reagan’s beliefs, the limitations of his political credo and the occasional mistakes and absurdities of his political career. Wise, fair and witty, Iwan Morgan's life of Reagan is likely to be accepted by both the admirers and the critics of the fortieth president as both trustworthy and readable.’ –

Godfrey Hodgson