000			02738nam a2200181Ia 4500
999			_c2195 _d2195
005			20220131204039.0
008			200202s9999 xx 000 0 und d
082			_a305.5 BRO
100			_aBrooks, John
245		0	_aGreat leap: the past twenty five years in America
260			_aNew York
260			_bHarper and Row
260			_c1966
300			_a382p.
520			_aThe multiple revolutions in American life between 1939 and 1965 are the theme of this narrative of our times: changes so rapid and far-reaching as to be unprece- dented not only in our experience but in that of any nation not suddenly trans- formed by war or plague. 1939 was a watershed year. It was the year college boys took to eating goldfish. Only one American in thirty-three paid any income tax. Communists dominated certain large and powerful labor organizations. War broke out in Europe and the atomic bomb project was conceived. Since then America has become richer, more powerful, older, and perhaps wiser. Big business, that arch villain of the New Deal, has experienced the corporation ex- plosion and with it a transformation in character. The supergiants of today are benign, smiling and approval-seeking and Keynes has replaced Adam Smith as our national economic philosopher. General prosperity and the income tax have brought about a great leveling. Pov- erty is still with us, but it is not epidemic. The transformation in communications, particularly the phenomenal rise of tele- vision, has caused a filtering down of ideas and attitudes formerly confined to the small educated middle and upper class. This has resulted not only in the "cultural explo- sion” (and the general acceptance of psy- choanalysis), but in a national awareness of our involvement in international politics; and along with the revolutions in science and education, it has spurred that uniquely American issue, the civil-rights movement. Are all aspects of the vast change im- provements? Well, no. In the process of becoming urbanized, Americans have de- spoiled their cities and their countryside. Religion has become amiably homogenized. There has been a clear-cut deterioration in the relations between races. And the Amer- ican image has suffered abroad. They liked a us better when we seemed naïve, some- times silly-and were less powerful. To the reader's continual fascination- and amazement-Mr. Brooks presents not only the startling contrasts between then and now but a lucid analysis of how and why this transformation occurred. The Great Leap is a brilliant combination of summary and synthesis, social history at its liveliest and most illuminating.
650			_aSociology
942			_cB _2ddc