Description: In brisk and engaging prose, this comprehensive introductory textbook traverses the broad sweep of US history since 1945. Winds of Hope, Storms of Discord explores how Americans from all walks of life - political leaders, businesspeople, public intellectuals, workers, students, activists, migrants, and others - struggled to define the nation's political, economic, geopolitical, demographic, and social character. It chronicles the nation's ceaseless ferment, from the rocky conversion to peacetime in the early aftermath of World War II; to the frightening emergence of the Cold War and repeated US military adventures abroad; to the struggles of African Americans and other minorities to claim a share of the American Dream; to the striking transformations in social attitudes catalyzed by the women's movement and struggles for gay and lesbian liberation; to the dynamic force of political, economic, and social conservatism. Carrying the story to the spring of 2022, Winds of Hope also shows how dizzying technological changes at times threatened to upend the nation's civic and political life.
Brief description: Salim Yaqub is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for Cold War Studies and International History. He is the author of two previous books, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East (2004) and Imperfect Strangers: Americans, Arabs, and US-Middle East Relations in the 1970s (2016).
Review Quotes: 'Salim Yaqub has mastered the most recent scholarship on such diverse topics as social justice movements, modern conservatism, and the impact of technology, and woven it seamlessly into a deeply engaging narrative of the United States from 1945 to the 2020s. It is not just the wide sweep that impresses, but also the sharp eye for compelling, poignant detail. Personal yet authoritative, trenchant but even-handed, humane and witty, this is historical writing at its very best.' Hugh Wilford, California State University, Long Beach