Customer Reviews

Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s (The American Moment)

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David Goldberg's "Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s" for "The American Moment" series is a hybrid: part-college textbook and part-historical interpretation. While Goldberg's book presents his readers with an introduction of the discontented during the 1920s, because of its specialization, it also serves as an original historical inquiry.

Goldberg emphasis is to illustrate the disillusionment that was a direct result of the war. According to Goldberg, the discontent of the twenties was largely due to the early ending of World War I. Goldberg coverage includes: post-war foreign policy, decline of labor, red scare, African Americans, rise of second KKK, anti-immigration policies and the presidential election of 1928. While these areas of discontentment were largely a direct result of the war, there were other areas not addressed in his book.

Goldberg offers a selective picture, but it is not the entire picture. Areas not covered include: (1) the plight of the American farmer, (2) rural and small town discontentment against the larger more industrial cities, (3) conflict between modernist/liberals verse the conservatives/fundamentalist movements, (4) discontent between the generations and the emergence of a youth culture, (5) coverage of sentiment shared by many Americans of the enormous loss of life resulting from the war and the influenza outbreak and its influences on the brief return in the Spiritualist movements and finally, (6) returning veterans with their disillusionment towards the war, government in general, foreign policy and their eventual support of the isolationist movements in the thirties and early forties. Topics absolutely vital for understanding America's post WWI disillusionments.

This was OK but as I wrote on Rebirth of a Nation, this book is an ersatz version of the yet to be published volumes in the Oxford History of the Unites States series.

You can tell the author is pro-union, but there is good information on the labor struggles.