Concepts:

The investigation of current public issues in this culminating unit exposes the students to topics with which they will continue to deal in the years that follow.

It is hoped that, by the study of key issues and problems pertaining to American society, economy, government, and relationships with the rest of the world, students will cap their study of American history by developing an understanding of where we are, how we got there, and, perhaps, where we are going.

Major Concepts:

1. The succession of political and economic crises that dominated the 1970s continued to undermine Americans' faith in their political and economic systems.

 

2. In the 1980s, American politics and society experienced a profound conservative shift in values and political assumptions that, for the first time in half a century, questioned the basic assumptions of American public life.
3. The American economic system continued to experience relative decline when compared with the economies of the Pacific Rim nations such as Japan and South Korea -- in particular, declines in the strength and competitiveness of American manufacturing industries.
4. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-1991 and the overthrow of Communist governments throughout Eastern Europe transformed the face of world politics and brought an end to the Cold War, but the United States, the world's last superpower, struggled to define its place in world affairs and to work with other nations to devise a structure of world politics to succeed the Cold-War split between the Free World and the Communist bloc.
5. American politics became increasingly volatile in the 1980s and 1990s, as the electorate see-sawed between its perennial distrust of big, centralized government and its abiding desire that government help solve such major national problems as that of health care and care for the elderly.

 

Unit XII is designed to analyze the great complexity of forces and events that have influenced the character of American society, economy, and politics since 1975. It attempts to explain the nature of American society in the modern era and the problems the American people need to solve.

The curriculum exposes students to the changing character of American institutions and life since 1975, and what has happened over that time to make the political, economic, cultural, and social situation what it is today. In this period, Americans began to question the continuing success of the American economy and society and whether America's problems can be solved by the application of government power.

This curriculum unit uses the presidents of that era, and their responses to the nagging array of problems and issues, as the framework for organizing the historical study of this period.

Lesson 1