How We Got Here: The 1970s: The Decade That Brought You Modern Life (for Better or Worse)

This is the book for anyone who's ever asked, sardonically or not, "How could the nation ever elect Ronald Reagan president?" Today, many people, young and old, talk about the Reagan years like they some sort of political anomaly. David Frum's excellent deconstruction of the 1970s displaces that notion. But it's not just about how the depressing 1970s gave way to the go-go 1980s. Frum draws a clear line from the intellectual seeds that were sown in the 1950s and 60s, seeds that didn't bear fruit until the 70s, to the issues that influence public discourse and behavior today. The crux of Frum's analysis is that the seventies were a decade where America lost its faith in the concept of the "beneficent organization." This disillusionment crossed the political and social spectrum. The values of organizational hierarchy, centralized planning, self-sacrifice for a common goal, social conformity for the sake of community strength-values that sustained the nation through the Depression, World War II and the explosive American economic growth of the 1950s, ceased to have meaning amid the failures of Vietnam, the scandals of Watergate, decline of U.S. industry and the alarming simultaneous growth in inflation and unemployment. The 1970s particularly marked the limits of the "New Deal" tradition of economic planning that by then was gospel for both Republicans and Democrats. The energy crisis laid bare the ineffectiveness, if not destructiveness, of Nixon's wage-price controls and by extension any other attempt for government to manage markets. Ongoing union corruption, plus the decline of heavy industry and the rise of service-oriented business, marginalized organized labor. Rather than achieve the goal of desegregation, social experimentation such as mandated busing only led to vast white flight and only increased racial separation and the discrepancy in quality of education. In Frum's analysis, the 1970s marked a major upheaval in how we viewed the individual in relation to social structures-be it government, employers, religious institutions or family. It was, in truth, the "Me Decade." Diversity became more important than unity, personal fulfillment became more important than family responsibility, and desires were redefined as rights. Although Frum writes from a conservative point of view, he does not view all the achievements of the 70s as bad. He clearly does not advocate going back to earlier times when racism was tolerated, industries from banking to trucking were heavily regulated and gold ownership was illegal. But he does believe that in many cases, a lot of good values, especially individual responsibility, the willingness to defer gratification and the belief in concepts higher than one's self, were discredited wholesale with bad ones. All in all, the book makes for a very good history lesson. Young people especially may be surprised to learn that less than 30 years ago, mainstream Democrats still viewe

This refreshing new book is less a history of the 1970's than an exploration of some of the forces in American society that came to a head in that "slum of a decade," such as the widespread loss of respect for government, runaway inflation, the abandonment of the South Vietnamese, the cult of the self and the corresponding decline of family and community, and race- and gender-based politics. I think it would have been better to leave "the 70's" out of the book's title, but I recognize that almost any book that purports to be about the 1970's will catch the attention of those of us who came of age in that weird and wonderful era.Frum is an excellent writer, and he provides clear and concise overviews of subjects as complex as the Bretton Woods monetary system, national mental-health policy, the economics of oil and the development of busing as a remedy for school segregation. He pays relatively little attention to popular culture, which is probably a good thing, because most of it was awful. For a fun, intelligent look at the popular culture of the decade, check out Edelstein and McDonugh's lavishly illustrated "The Seventies: From Hot Pants to Hot Tubs," which unfortunately is now hard to find.A central question of "How We Got Here" is whether America's confidence in the 1950's, which completely fell apart in the 1970's, was an anomaly rather than the norm. A related question is whether the events of the 1970's represent America's return to its "normal" state -- contentious, disparate and often violent -- or the beginning of a steady national decline from which we will never fully recover. Frum seems to believe that midcentury stability was the product of, as he calls it, "special circumstances," and that we shouldn't be overly worried about our country's future. I agree with him, but it's also hard to ignore the evidence of national decline that he presents so compellingly in this book.

I am exceedingly grateful for this book. I'm 52 years old and came of age during the 70's. I was a child of my times. I was aware that things were changing, but never had any real idea of the true nature of these changes while they were happening. Like most of my peers, I never went further than the headlines. I accepted the interpretation of the others around me who were equally ignorant of the facts behind those headlines. Now I spend a great deal of my time trying to understand just why I have become so unhappy with what America has become. I liked some of the social changes I saw, but became quite disenchanted with the wanton destruction of all the institutions that I know are essential to a successful civilization. Marriage, religion, masculine and feminine ethics, law, respect for legitimate authority, families, education, morality......., the list goes on and on. All these things were smashed beyond recognition without the slightest thought about how they might be replaced. This book fills in the blanks. What was the real meaning of the Pentagon papers? Why were the Carter years such a failure of leadership? What part did the government play in the madness? What were the political facts behind Vietnam? These and many more questions are touched upon in easily readable form. The second from the last paragraph of the book sums up the general tone rather well:"Americans are a people of anxious conscience, and they do not seem very pleased with themselves these days. They see corruption in office and their fellow-citizens apparently acquiescing in it; they see pervasive child-neglect, disrespect for legitimate authority, quotas in the workplace, gruesome crimes in the quietest towns, misspellings in the letters form their children's teachers, smut on the airwaves, the hardening misery of the poorest of the poor. They lack the vocabulary to express their misgivings. How can one judge if one has been taught all one's life that it is wicked to be judgmental? But rendering the misgivings inarticulate does not make them go away. So let's be articulate. It is not true that things in general were better half a century ago. Things in many respects were worse----more militaristic, less innovative, more statist, less tolerant, more unionized, less humane, more prejudiced. Nostalgia for the past would be misplaced, and even if it were not, nostalgia is the weakest and most useless of emotions, the narcotic of the defeated and the helpless. But if things in general were not better, some things in particular were. It was better when people showed more loyalty to family and country, better when they read more and talked about themselves less, better when they restrained their sexuality, better when professors and curators were unafraid to uphold high intellectual standards, better when immigrants were expected to Americanize promptly, better when not every sorrow begat a lawsuit."

This is a brilliant book. Mr. Frum has written about the 1970s in a style that should be the model for all future historians. All works on a historical time period should take Mr. Frum's lead in combining politics, pop culture, values, and yes, humor into a single work. Frum's thesis - that the origin of what we call the "modern world" came from the 1970s - is proved beyond a doubt. It was a time, you could say, when 1960s political values came into our backyards. Freedom marches in Selma became forced busing in Boston. Flower children became porn stars in our living rooms. Of course, this condition was accompanied by a violent backlash from conservatives. The meeting of these two cultures naturally led to war. In the courts. In the schoolboards. In our government. In most cases, liberal values won out. Where liberalism wasn't as successful was in the economic sphere, where inflation discredited government planning and regulation almost as badly as the Great Depression discredited laissez-faire in the 1930s. The post-war political consensus on the economy and social values ruptured along several faults and the consequences of that split affect us to this present day. Frum analyzes this condition with candor and facts. From Vietnam to Watergate, from blue jeans to disco, from divorce to busing, from New Age cults to Arab sheiks, you will not find a better read on the 1970s than in the pages of this book.

David Frum's new book is a masterpiece of historical, social, and economic analysis. Frum persuasively makes the case that the 1970s were far more influential than the 1960s in terms of impact upon the future of America. Frum obviously evaluates the 1970s from a very conservative point of view, but he is a not a new-jerk conservative who automatically condemns everything about the 1970s and nostagically longs for the 1950s. Frum contends that the social conventions and mindsets which prevailed between 1920 and 1970 constituted a unique period in American history, existing due to the demands of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Therefore, change was inevitable. Nevertheless, much of the change that occurred in the 1970s was undesirable because of its devestating impact on our culture. Frum accentuates the negative changes, but towards the end of the book he discusses the rays of hope that emerged at the end of a dark decade - deregulation, tax revolt, etc. Frum ranges across a remarkably diverse group of subjects from fashion to environmentalism to inflation in concise, definitive essays. Frum so frequently overwhelms the reader with his mastery of detail and narrative that editorial elaboration is not even necessary; he has already made his case. His prose sparkles and dazzles with the best style of any contemporary political writer. The book was a real page-turner; I could not put it down. I stayed up to 1 A.M. three nights in a row to finish it.