The Eighties: A Reader [Paperback]

Gilbert T. Sewall (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 6, 1998

The America of the 1980s is often caricatured as a time of yuppie greed and self-absorption. But what was driving that decades rampant pursuit of individual pleasure? What were the cultural forces behind Madonna’s ”Material Girl” and Oliver Stone’s Wall Street? These fascinating essays, collected by historian Gilbert T. Sewall from the major books, journals, news reports, and public addresses of the day, survey the tumultuous social change that engulfed the nation—and explain why we are still feeling the aftershocks today.With contributions by such diverse figures as Chistopher Lasch, Lewis H. Lapham, Eric Bogosian, and Hilton Kramer, The Eighties touches on the hallmarks of the age: celebrity culture and hype, exhibitionism and shamelessness, academic ferment, and the lure of money. Kennedy Fraser on the new trend machine. James Q. Wilson on attitudes toward crime, Shelby Steele on African American angst, Tom Wolfe on art objects as religious totems—this lively reader brings together, for the first time, the voices that defined an era.As Sewall so deftly tells it, the story of the 1980s is not merely one of politics or financial chicanery—although both get their due in the book. The 1980s were an era of disquieting attitudes, fantasies, and dreams. As Americans experienced new forms of social anxiety and spiritual crisis, the debate over what constitutes excellence in the arts and in education touched off the so-called culture wars. All of this is evident in the rise of identity politics as well as in films like The Big Chill and feel-good democratic displays of international activism like Live Aid, in the overnight sensation of cocaine-fueled, star-studded nightclubs like New York City’s Limelight, in the flamboyant mood of hit television shows like Dynasty and Dallas, and in the success of The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom’s staunch defense of Western tradition.Invigorated conservatism in politics and society was, paradoxically, accompanied by the ascent of a new establishment of ”tenured radicals,” for whom alternative values and cultural innovation supported lucrative careers. Finally empowered to make the social and political changes they had only dreamed about in earlier decades, these boomers stimulated an acrimonious debate over the nature of the good life and the soul of the nation.With remarkable verve, The Eighties sheds new light on the decade that brought us Ronald Reagan and MTV, a decade that continues to frame some of today’s most vexing political, economic, and cultural debates

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

For the postmodern wary, this work, edited by Sewall (Dream Republic, Addison, 1997), presents splendid essayists known for their tongue-in-cheek writing on our age. Hilton Kramer (of New Criterion), James Q. Wilson (Moral Sense, LJ 7/93), and dozens of others are bull's-eye perfect. While the essays have appeared elsewhere, Gilbert has produced a fine epistemic chrestomathy of social, fiscal, cultural, and religious issues for moderates. Myron Magnet's essay on the money society is first-rate; Neil Postman's screed against automation is a perfect anodyne to the technology craze; and Alasdair MacIntyre's excerpt from his After Virtue (Univ. of Notre Dame, 1984) is as powerful as ever. Although equally as polemical as John Heidenry's What Wild Ecstasy: The Rise and Fall of the Sexual Revolution (LJ 3/15/97), this collection exceeds it in accuracy and delicious vitriol. It will delight its friends while disquieting its enemies. For public and academic libraries.?Mark Y. Herring, Oklahoma Baptist Univ., Shawnee
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Gathering articles and book excepts by the likes of Allan Bloom, Irving Kristol, and P.J. O'Rourke, Sewall, an authority on school curricula and textbooks at the Center for Education Studies, assembles an ultraconservative primer on an ultraconservative era. For those who would rather not remember what they were doing during the '80s, these essays are reminder about the era of yuppies, conspicuous consumption, Drexel Burnham, identity politics, cultural neoconservatism, etc. Opening with late '70s cultural critiques by Christopher Lasch (from The Culture of Narcissism) and Ben Stein (from The View from Sunset Boulevard), the anthology has little specific to say about the social corollaries of, for instance, the New Right's politics, Reaganomics, the drug wars, or the beginning of the end of the Cold War--much less about MTV or Madonna. Instead, Sewall focuses mainly on the culture wars, academic debates over the canon, and the resurgent concept of virtue, offering pieces by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Christiana Hoff Summers, and others. Articles from the New York Times about the early diagnosis of AIDS, subway panhandlers, and Limelight, the Manhattan church-turned-disco, provide some color, along with lighter, satirical pieces by Eric Bogosian on how to pitch a sitcom and by Tom Wolfe on quasi-religious culture vultures. The liberal perspective is (meagerly) represented by a few self-critical editorials from the New Republic. Racial matters are touched on by Richard Rodriguez and Shelby Steele. Many selections (Irving Kristol on the intelligentsia's discontent with America and Western civilization; Louis Menand on critical legal studies; Hilton Kramer on the death of Andy Warhol) make the '80s seem mostly like a delayed reaction to the '60s. The '80s may be history, but Sewall's The Eighties tells only a part of that history. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (November 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738200352
• ISBN-13: 978-0738200354
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,756,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Of Narcissisms, Hubris, and Swinging to the Right..., September 19, 2000

By 

yygsgsdrassil "yygsgsdrassil" (Crossroads America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Eighties: A Reader (Paperback)

....or the Ray-Gun Reader. Sewall's introductory essay "Revisiting the Eighties" does a perfect job of overviewing what was siginficant in the 80's...starting with the account of the Morgan Stanley broker who was sound bit "Only Suckers would work for less than $200,000 a year" shortly after the Great Market Blowout in '88. It was a decade of greed, true enough, but also because of the messages the era of Reagan 'sublimininably' sent, in retrospect, it became a era of conservatives rallying to a divine purpose which nearest kinship was Nazi-ism, Fascism, Hitlerism...the Chosen Few was drafted to the top, as Tom Wolfe indicated,'Masters of the Universe'. It was Allan Bloom making a case for the return of classical, traditional education in the universities, it was Ben Stein (who, I hear recently is giving away money on a Comedy Channel gameshow) reflecting on how Hollywood created culture through the eyes of people who never, ever had to worry about being able to pay a telephone or a light bill, it was the appearance of AIDS and how the blindsidedness of many, many folks made it more deadly to millions of people, it was PJ O'Rourke and Eric Bogosian's biting satire, it was William Bennett's conservatism. These many essays tell the story of how we inadvertedly came to where we are today. Read the book and rediscover the 80's, it just may help us create better days, now...

4.0 out of 5 stars Important reading, July 7, 2003

By 

Hasnor Lot (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Eighties: A Reader (Hardcover)

The '80s is decidedly an important decade in twentieth-century America, colored by significant events and social changes, perhaps eclipsed only by the more radical era that preceded it by some twenty years. These collections of essays present a multitude of thoughts, both about and of the '80s, thoughts that both analyzed and constituted the zeitgeist of the decade. From Kristol's serious manifesto of neoconservatism to Wolfe's hilarious ridicule of pretentious public art, The Eighties: A Reader remains an indispensable portrait of a tumultuous time.