Events That Made an Impact: United States in the 1950s to 1990s Essay

after struggleds the domain war II fizzled go forth, people around the orbit had no choice but to pick up the pieces of what has been left of the unrelenting desolation that the global was has brought to them. However, the lofty triumphs achieved during the war were superlative little because numerous ch both in allenges had spr offed because countries agnize the inevitability of the Nuclear Age, which triggered fear amongst the people as they realized a grim scenario that a single bomb could decimate cities in seconds.What name transpired beyond the events between the World cont oddity II to the nineties ar essential elements that do up what society has become in our give birth. Naturally, it paved the way for a next society that could learn from all the mistakes made and use it to settle all inequities that could mold conflict among nations and people.In the unite States, the time from 1950s to the 1990s has been crucial in shaping democracy, compare and techno logy that all Ameri rats enjoy today. From the economic boom that sparked the rise of unseasoned markets in the 1950s, to the rise of civilized rights movement in the sixties, to the concern most the Vietnam struggle in 1970s, to the end of the Cold state of war in the eighties and the upshot of globalisation in 1990s, all of these major(ip) events have graven their mark in each decade that brandished the saga of what modern American purification has become. And despite all challenges that abound, what is important is that Americans have become much(prenominal) kind and the government has understood from heeding the call of times during these unforgettable events.The events from the 1950s to the 1990s honed a society that put the people at the forefront of all priorities, as defense policies were institutionalized to protect them from the harsh realities of war objet dart humanitarian causes are still considered appropriately to bring return to the greater good of Am ericans and to otherwise people from the nap of the human beings. Clearly, the fast-changing times at present can be scare away, but the events that happened in the 1950s to the 1990s had inclined(p) us to be stronger in facing all the odds that comprise beneath. by dint of breaking barriers among nations around the world, people can make things mathematical and could definitely make our lives better in the future ahead.1950s The progeny of a Post-industrial Society After the etiolated flags has been raised during the conclusion of World War II, nations around the world dusted dispatch the embers of war and began working on to build nations that would benefit people (Gaddis, 1997). Despite the unwarranted fears that the Cold War between the coupled States (US) and the brotherhood of Soviet Socialists Republic (USSR) could trigger other war in the future, it is believed that what brought the greatest impact during this decade is the renaissance of the post-industrial t hriftiness that led to the emergence of the suburban culture Davidson et al. (2002) observed that during this period, suburban fruit accel periodted sharply and the suburbs grew 40 times faster than cities, so that by 1960 half(prenominal) of the American people lived in them.The return of prosperity brought a baby boom and a need for new housing. Davidson et al. (2002) indicated that birth grade in the United States in 1952 had spiked to 25 per thousand to adjoin on one of the highest fertility rates in the world. juvenile brides were also younger, which translated into peculiar fertility. Americans chose to have larger families, as the number with three children tripled and those with four or more(prenominal) quadrupled. Because of the economic growth, automobiles made the suburbs accessible. But the spurt in suburban growth took its toll on the cities, which suffered as the middle class fled urban areas.Famous sociologist Daniel Bell indicated that the rise of the so-call ed post-industrial rescue can benefit American people. For Bell, this never loadedt the complete annihilation of American manufacturing, but it did mean that white-collar work within the sectors of finance and banking, leisure and tourism, corporate seek and development in technologies, in federal and local government bureaucracies and in retail would supersede manufacturing industry as the major structural bases of the American economy (Waters 1996, p. 112). Furthermore, the development of improved computing and communications technologies facilitated suburbanization by make it easy for companies to decentralize as the man ripenments were able to tick off their operations more efficiently.American culture also diversifyd in the 1950s. American families began to take the ground level of the sitcom families touristed during the era. Hayden (2003) indicated that American streets and families became similar in age, race, and income to the nationally popular sitcoms of the 1950s including Leave It to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, and Father retires Best (p. 128). Also, many corporations advertised in the 1950s became a cultural consensus just as much as the products they sold. They praised prosperity as a reflection of an American way of liveliness.However, non all Americans were persuaded of the virtues of consensus and business leadership. Intellectuals and artists found in corporate culture a stifling conformity that crushed individual creativity. On the fringes of society, artists flaunted traditional expression and values. Closer to the mainstream, a new generation of musicians created rock and roll, which became the sound of new rebellion that sparked in the decades ahead.1960s Seeking Equality and the Emergence of the well-behaved Rights MovementAs the United States enjoyed quite an improvement in economy during the 1950s, turmoil began to spread in its social arena in the 1960s. circumstance is that the civil rights movement was triggered by th e Montgomery bus incident in 1955. Mrs. Rosa Parks, a raw seamstress, refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man. Mrs. Parks was arrested and subsequently, she was bailed out of jail by E. D. Nixon, the Montgomery representative of the Brotherhood of Sleeping gondola Porters and a local leader of the National Association for the Advancement of drear People (NAACP). Later that evening, Nixon was struck with the idea of having Montgomerys black citizens boycott the citys segregated bus system.According to Loevy (1990), the major accomplishment of the Montgomery bus boycott was that it turned a non-violent introduction for racial integration into a national watchword story. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was select to lead the bus boycott. Montgomerys forty thousand blacks stayed off the city buses for more than a year, vowing not to return until the buses were totally desegregated (p. 22).The emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr., in the mid-1950s was a key event in the escalating fight for civil rights. Through the experience gained during the Montgomery bus boycott, King learned that the northerly and western United States were most likely to press for civil rights repossess when a dramatic instance of racial segregation was presented on the news media, particularly television (Branch, 1988).Two of the massive racial protests in the 1960s brought about by the Montgomery bus incident in produced major civil rights bills. The impetus for Congress to enact the gracious Rights human activity of 1964 (which illegalise racial discrimination in public places) occurred following brutal white suppression of racial demonstrations led by Dr. King in Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963. An equally brutal re do to a voting rights march led by King in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 produced the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in which gave the U.S. Government the power to register blacks to vote in grey states (Loevy,1990).It was chairperson Lyndon Jo hnson had worked assiduously for the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Only months after its word sense he added muscle to the demand for nondiscrimination by issuing Executive suppose 11246. The racism that had infected federal employment (and also the work forces of head-to-head firms with which the federal government did business) was no longer to be tolerated.The words of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave specificity and concreteness to the constitutional guarantee of the equal protection of the laws. In employment, in education, in all spheres of public accommodation, there was to be from that time preceding no official favoritism for one race or cultural group at the expense of others. The intentions of the members of the Congress in adopting this law were understandably and emphatically expressed (Cohen & Sterba, 2003, p. 10). This is why, to this genuinely day, that American society learned to frown upon all sorts of racial preference and discrimination.1970s Iniquitie s of the Vietnam WarWhen more than half a million American troops were sent to intervene in Vietnams civil war, there was a widespread dissent in United States. Campaigns were outright to denounce the US governments forces conquests in Southeast Asia, particularly in Vietnam. Though war is a decision that is entered into by governments, public opinion plays a significant intention in its execution. By 1971, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam had surpassed 50,000, and antiwar sentiment became very strong. As war was occurring in Vietnam, bloody protests sparked also sparked in the United States.Vietnam War was a relatively young mans war, with the average age of soldiers serving in Vietnam was 19 (Davidson et al., 2002). The wages of death and survival of these soldiers are also complicated. In Tim OBriens The Things They Carried (1990), he featured his experiences in the Vietnam War and how he struggled to fight the feeling of isolation after returning home from the wa r.Instead of forgetting the occurrences during the Vietnam War, OBrien faced to confront the ghosts of his odious experiences during the war. His life is caught up in the web of his past experiences as he seeks console to get rid of his unfavorable traumas that haunt him after the extreme experiences he encountered in Vietnam. He still feels the chaos even it is thirty long time later. He wanted to get rid of denial, but his memory of the terrible experiences still traumatizes him greatly.Because of the war, US also suffered poverty because wars yearly cost soared to more than $50 billion a year as it fueled a rising inflation. This is why in 1973, the Congress passed the War Powers Act, which required the president to consult with Congress about military action and prohibited spending in Southeast Asia for more U.S. military action. joined with congressional cuts in aid to South Vietnam, the presidents war powers were thoroughgoing(a)ly limited (Walsh, 2007). Many people felt u p that the involvement of Americans in the Vietnam War was a losing battle both in the battleground and at home. In the 11 years of the US involvement in Vietnam, it did not only bring humiliation to the US as it failed to gain control of a small nation but also it brought a painful detriment in social and economic costs in its very homeland.1980s Closure of the Cold War FearsThe silent conflict of United States and Soviet Union finally ceased in the 1980s. With the democratic reform that move across Eastern Europe, this ended the four decades of communist rule and Soviet domination of the region. Germans, divided since World War II, dismantled the Berlin Wall, which long had been the type of Soviet-American confrontation and reunified their country. Nationalist groups within the Soviet Union demanded greater familiarity and Premier Mikhail Gorbachev desperately worked to reform a disintegrating economy and to hold the Soviet state together.With the Soviet Union no longer a thr eat, Americans felt less a sense of triumph than an uncertainty about the percentage of the United States in a less predictable and perhaps less stable world (Hess 2001, p. 153). The United States and Russia initiated to end the Cold War and agree to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. In 1991, the Strategic Arms Reduction pact (START) concluded and surpassed the limits negotiated in earlier SALT talks. By June 1992 US President Bush and Russias Boris Yeltsin had agreed to even sharper cuts.However, American foreign policy had been defined by the Cold War with the Soviet Union and its communist allies. Not just Americas relations with the rest of the world, but also its domestic political and social life were shaped by the overriding national imperative of containing the involution of communism. But the end of the Cold War made it more difficult to articulate what just now constituted the American national interest.With the terrorist attacks of September 2001, Singh (2 003) argued that a new era was ushered into being, although most of the contours of US policy were in fact unchanged by the tragedy. Not least, the fundamental predicament for America since 1945 whether to accept a share as global policeman while being castigated abroad as a global bully remained inescapable (p. 263).1990s Breaking the Barriers Through orbiculateizationThe trend of globalization has become one of the most slender factors that determine the path for changes that occur in many economies worldwide in the 1990s. It had triggered enormous changes in various sectors in society and had pressured everyone to ride the waves of change that globalization has brought about. As a concept, McGrew (1992) captured the complexity of the current view of globalization in a concise and balanced way.He defined globalization as the multiplicity of linkages and interconnections between the states and societies which make up the modern world system it describes the process by which ev ents, decisions, and activities in one part of the world can come to have significant consequences for individuals and communities in quite far-flung parts of the globe (p. 23).United States entered into several trade agreements to ease out doing business around the world, like the North American Free mountain Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Also, US became more intertwined to a global community via the Internet. The rise of the Internet also create new economies and opportunities. The revolution in microchip technologies contributed substantially to the economic expansion of the 1990s. In 1998, e-commerce alone generated some 482,000 jobs (Davidson et al., 2002).However, globalization is not without criticism. Lobeda (2006) argued that the growth scheme in globalization failed to take into account distribution of wealth and income. For instance, economists point to a 22.2 percent growth in average nursing home deserving in the United S tates from 1983 to 1998. Yet the number of homeless people increased, more and more people were unable to obtain healthcare, and many citizens experienced severe economic insecurity and job loss. The growth indicators dont patch out that the wealthiest one percent experienced skyrocketing increases in income, while middle- and lower-income families axiom their incomes shrink. So while the average household wealth increased, the median household net worth decreased by 10 percent in the same period.Conclusion What we could deem from the era of post World War II to the 1990s are essential events that shaped our history. These are events are very colored with numerous triumphs and some failures in different aspects. Triumphs because of all the achievements gained within this period that led to improve American society as a whole.Failures, on the other hand, will serve as lessons where we can earn our credit from learning the past mistakes so that these will be never repeated again in the future. It can, indeed be daunting that lies ahead might trigger newer challenges, like the rise of technology, terrorism and other new innovations that might have a serious impact to our future. But, with a renewed thought as one nation of multicultural origins, American people can surely take a stand in working as one nation and take advantage of what the future holds for them.ReferencesBranch, T. (1988). Parting the Waters America in the King Years, 1954-1963, New York Simon and Schuster.Cohen, C., & Sterba, J. P. (2003). affirmatory Action and Racial Preference A Debate. New York Oxford University Press.Davidson, W.F., West, J., Gienapp, C.L., Heyrman, M.L., and Stoff, M.B. (2002). Nation of Nations A Concise Narrative of the American Republic Vol. 2, 3rd ed. NY The McGraw-Hill Companies.Gaddis, J.L. (1997). We Now Know Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford Oxford University Press.Hayden, D. (2003). Building Suburbia Green Fields and urban Growth, 1820-2000. Westminster, MD Knopf Publishing Group.Lobeda, C.M. (2006). Globalization Is Harmful to Society. In L.I. Gerdes (ed.), Globalization. San Diego Greenhaven Press.Loevy, R.D. (1990). 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