American History: A Survey (Brinkley), 13th Edition

Chapter 28: THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY

Main themes of Chapter Twenty-eight:

• The remarkable (if not "miraculous") postwar economic boom, and its impact on government spending, capital, and labor



• The explosion of scientific and technological breakthroughs in the decades after World War I, particularly in the realms of medical research, computer electronics, military technology, and space exploration



• The contours of the technological, consumer-oriented, and remarkably affluent society of the 1950s, and its shadow, consisting of a less privileged underclass and the existence of a small corps of aesthetic detractors



• The origins of the civil-rights revolution for African Americans, beginning with the Supreme Court's social desegregation decision of 1954



• The business-oriented "dynamic conservatism" of President Dwight Eisenhower, which resisted most new reforms without significantly rolling back the activist government programs born in the 1930s



• The foreign policy of Dwight Eisenhower, which continued to allow containment by building alliances, supporting anticommunist regimes, maintaining the arms race, and conducting limited interventions, but also showed an awareness of American limitations and resisted temptations for greater commitments

• The surprising strength of the economy in the 1950s and early 1960s



• The explosion of science and technology in the postwar world, especially in the fields of medicine, chemistry, electronics, rocketry, and space exploration



• The effects of affluence on the American lifestyle in the 1950s, including the rapid growth of suburbs, televisions, and rock 'n' roll



• The aesthetic and social backlash against the affluent society, as manifested in the writings of the Beat and the rise of juvenile delinquency



• The plight of the "Other America," left out of the economic affluence of the period



• The significance of the Supreme Court's desegregation decision and the rise of the early civil rights movement



• The characteristics of Dwight Eisenhower's middle-of-the-road domestic policy



• The new elements of American foreign policy introduced by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles



• The origins and significance of increasing United States involvement in the Middle East and Latin America



• The reasons for new tensions with the Soviet Union toward the end of the Eisenhower administration