A Bubble in Time: America During the Interwar Years, 1989-2001 [Hardcover]

William L. O'Neill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2009

The all-too-brief period of relative tranquility that extended from the end of the Cold War to the beginning of the War on Terror is the subject of William L. O'Neill's brilliant new study of recent American history. Mr. O'Neill's sharp eye for the telling incident and the apt quotation combine with an acute historical judgment to make A Bubble in Time a compellingly readable informal history.

The first Gulf War and President Clinton's interventions abroad notwithstanding, American spirits were freer from fear than they had been since the 1920s, the author argues. No world war loomed before the United States, and after the Berlin Wall came down the specter of nuclear annihilation faded as well. A brief recession in the 1990s gave way to the most prosperous years Americans had known for decades. Unlike in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, the increase in national wealth trickled down to the middle class thanks to an unusual rise in productivity and large infrastructure investments by firms in the "new economy." To general amazement, crime rates began falling after almost thirty years of increases, so that Americans were happier, safer, and materially better off than before.

Although the Republican party turned to the dark side, Mr. O'Neill writes, peace and prosperity enabled people to enjoy the finer things in life and to lavish their concerns on political correctness, the decline of the military, the troubles of higher education, and the manifestations of an out-of-control popular culture he calls "Tabloid Nation"—the trials of O.J. Simpson and President Clinton, SUVs, cell phones, and bimbo eruptions.

Mr. O'Neill explores them all, and more, with insight and wit. "It was all too good to last," he tells us. "Reality intruded again with the dot.com crash in 2000 and the terrorist attacks of 2001. Still, we will always have Paris Hilton." With 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Author and Rutgers Univ. professor O'Neill accounts for the U.S.'s "interwar years" under Presidents George H. Bush and Bill Clinton with intelligence, insight and unapologetic lefty bias, bringing order to a layered mess of controversies-the first Gulf War, the O.J. trial, Newt Gingrich's Contract with America and the Monica Lewinsky affair among them. Eschewing impartiality, O'Neill uses personal opinions in judging history, weighing down his otherwise lucid and well-researched narrative with a strident agenda. For instance, regarding Tailhook and other military sex scandals, O'Neill states that "A gender-integrated armed force requires a kind of bonding for which there is small precedent... and giving up that misogyny which is at once a shameful feature of service life and perhaps a necessary one." Fifty years ago, the same could have been said about African-Americans; with this kind of value judgment, O'Neill risks appearing at best quaint, and at worst anachronistic-neither one a shining quality in a historian. Still, for those who lean O'Neill's way, this is an intelligent reading of 12 years in recent U.S. history.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Few historians possess the literary gifts of William O’Neill, whose previous books on the 1950s and the 1960s remain gems of modern American history. O’Neill’s great strength is his ability to weave the disparate strands of politics and popular culture into a seamless story—a trend he continues with A Bubble in Time, a witty and wickedly perceptive account of American life in the decade of Desert Storm, Bill Clinton, O. J. Simpson and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is narrative history at its finest. (Oshinsky, David )

The 1990s truly were, as William O’Neill writes, a 'decade of lost chances.' In this shrewd, pungently written book, he recounts the folly and frivolity of those years while mourning the immense opportunities that Americans squandered.

(Bacevich, Andrew J. )

Well written and evenhanded, with a taut, perceptive narrative, William O’Neill’s A Bubble in Time does for the 1990s what Frederick Lewis Allen and Only Yesterday did for the 1920s. (Gould, Lewis L. )

Many of us who survived the fitful years between the end of the Cold War and the start of the so-called War on Terror often had trouble connecting the dots—from The Mother of Battles to Black Hawk Down, from O. J.’s black glove to Monica’s blue dress. We all owe a debt to the historical grasp of William L. O’Neill. A Bubble in Time recasts those episodes and others into a gestalt that makes more sense than the sum of its memorable but disjointed parts. And in the process he helps us to a better understanding of the twenty-first-century history we are now living through. (Shogan, Robert )

From the triumphs and scandals of the Clinton years to the Simpson trial, O’Neill’s outstanding recent history has all of the concision, insight, and wit of his wonderful classic, Coming Apart. (O'Brien, Michael )

O’Neill is one of the most impressive scholars of mid-century America, and now he has emerged as an equally important interpreter of an era that is just making the transition from newspaper headlines to history. (Brooks, Victor )

Gives a reader the chance to time travel back to a wild era. . . . Highly readable.

(Connecticut Post )

O'Neill applies an understated sense of humor and irony to connect the many dots in his narrative. (American Conservative )

An intelligent reading of 12 years in recent U.S. history. (Publishers Weekly )

A powerful social history, this deserves a place in any contemporary American history library. (Midwest Book Review )

Like a memorable college course, this book is both entertaining and edifying. (Causey, Adera Chattanooga Free Press )

Students of U.S. history will relish this book, which lets us look at the 1989–2001 era with the perspective of the passage of nearly a decade. O'Neill's contribution to understanding that period is to be treasured.

(Hall, Dennie The Oklahoman )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee; 1 edition (September 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566638062
• ISBN-13: 978-1566638067
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #239,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars decade of lost chances, February 8, 2010

By 

Frank L. Greenagel Jr. (New Brunswick, NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Bubble in Time: America During the Interwar Years, 1989-2001 (Hardcover)

Dr. O'Neill got his Ph. D. from Berkeley and has taught American history (World Wars I & II as well) at Rutgers University since 1971 (full disclosure: I took three classes with him in the late 90's). O'Neill has written several other books about 20th century America, and after reading this book, I'm hoping that he will write about the first decade of the 21st century as well.

In the preface, O'Neill states that the period of 1989 to 2001 (the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11) was marked by peace, prosperity and freedom from fear (and that it looks even better since it was followed by "a government whose arrogance was exceeded only by its ineptitude" (ix)). At the time, O'Neill marveled at new technologies (wireless laptops, cell phones, the internet, camcorders, satellites, cable news) and how they allowed more people to access more information at an ever increasing pace. Over time, he was disheartened to discover that despite these new technologies, people actually knew less and less about meaningful topics. He dubbed the media and its followers "Tabloid Nation," and their frenzy over Anita Hill, OJ, and Monica were just precursors to the media-saturated and celebrity-obsessed world that we live in today. The other major themes in his book (besides a narrative history of the 90's) are the failure of health care and the first clear evidence of the polarization of American politics into two ever acrimonious sects. Most significantly, he describes Clinton and Congress's failure to transform the military to handle future conflicts and to lessen the expenditures on antiquated aircraft carriers, tanks and other weapons.

The book's first chapter is about the election and presidency of Bush I. Bush comes across as a smart man with a deft touch regarding international politics. Clearly, Bush understood its dirty nature:

"In a private conversation Bush told Gorbachev that he expected to become the next president and wanted to improve Soviet-American relations. But to win the election he would have to say and do things that Gorbachev might find offensive. He urged Gorbachev to pay no attention to these political tactics and trust that Bush would do right by him in the end. Gorbachev later called this the "most important talk Bush and I ever had." (14).

Bush's failures include the empowerment of the Christian right by embracing it; the nomination of Clarence Thomas (who despite being against affirmative action benefited from it numerous times throughout his life (side note: Biden comes across terribly during the Thomas-Hill hearings)); and his inability to understand the unsustainability of Reaganomics (borrowed foreign capital, huge government spending and tax cuts for the rich).

O'Neill's chapter on the first Gulf War combines his impressive knowledge of military equipment with an analysis of the politics and strategy behind the war.

Clinton's childhood, education, background and his collision with Bush & Perot are covered in the third chapter. O'Neill read a plethora of books by Clinton's staffers, including Carville, Stephanopoulos & Morris, and he describes the fights and tensions between them (and he correctly compares the Clinton Whitehouse and its battles to FDR's Whitehouse (in only that way)).

O'Neill brilliantly sums up the backlash politics where people continually vote against their interests on page 120:

"Religious leaders stir the passions of angry and disposed people by attacking abortion, evolution, fluoridation, sacrilegious art, affirmative action, sex in movies and TV shows; backlash political leaders, often born-again Christians, exploit these "values" or "social" issues to win election to statehouses and Congress. There they vote for everything corporate America wants: lower taxes and less regulation, in ever more successful efforts to bring back the 1920's. The worse off they are, the more working people and small farmers vote to put people in office who hate labor unions and love agribusiness."

He covers the military sex scandals of Tailhook, Aberdeen and Ft. Leonardwood, and points out that while minority males have fared well in the military, women continue to get treated quite poorly (between this and the inter-branch squabbling during the Sudan and Afghanistan bombings, the military comes out looking terribly).

Twenty-seven pages are devoted to OJ Simpson. The chapter covers the history, crime, trial and aftershocks quite thoroughly (no one needs to read a 450 page book about it).

In his 40 page chapter on higher education, O'Neill chronicles the problems of race-based admissions policies, grade inflation, underpaid adjuncts, and the decline in the quality of students' work. He uses hard data to make his points on these issues.

The chapters on Clinton's two terms are very strong. He explains Morris's triangulation strategy that Clinton employed from both the Democratic and the Republican perspective (both parties were unhappy about it). The Bosnian conflict gets only eight pages (this is a history of America, not the world in the 90's though), but O'Neill provides a summary of the conflict and hits Clinton hard for his delays and praises him for coming through in the end. The government shut-down, balancing the budget, Monica, the near Middle East peace agreement, and the 2000 election all receive heavy attention.

O'Neill is always informative, often critical and sometimes humorous. In the epilogue, he details the problems of the military-industrial complex and its insane costs (both economically and opportunistically). In closing, he sets the reader up for his book (hopefully) on Bush II:

"Flying under the media's radar in little-read publications, think tanks, and other shadowy venues, neoconservatives and their allies plotted to invade Iraq, alienate the rest of the world, and ruin the American economy by means of runaway spending, massive tax cuts, and lax regulation - the trifecta of looters. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the multiple disasters of the Bush years were incubating in the heart of Clinton's America." After him came the deluge.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful social history, this deserves a place in any contemporary American history library, January 18, 2010

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Bubble in Time: America During the Interwar Years, 1989-2001 (Hardcover)

A BUBBLE IN TIME: AMERICA DURING THE INTERWAR YEARS, 1989-2001 provides a powerful survey of the decade leading up to the second Bush presidency and 2001, offering a view of the prosperous 1990s and the evolution of terrorism, struggles abroad, and botched government programs and arrogance. A powerful social history, this deserves a place in any contemporary American history library.