Description
An entertaining and deeply insightful history of a decade that matters more than we think: the 1990s. Nearly a quarter century after the decade of the 1990s ended, what really mattered in America during that era is finally coming into focus. Many of the most important developments in politics, culture, and society today have roots in that era: the rise of right-wing extremism, broad transformations in voting preferences among both the working and professional classes; the spread of neoliberal economic policy; and the rise of social media. In Why the Nineties Matter, Terry Anderson provides a broad-ranging history of America in that decade. Not simply a chronological account, the book focuses on key trends that either began or gained steam then and which have had lasting effects until this day. Threading together politics, economic transformations, and socio-cultural trends, he focuses on what mattered most in retrospect. Violent and extremist white nationalism intensified greatly in th