Major Problems in American History Since 1945: Documents and Essays

by Robert W. Griffith

This text presents a carefully selected group of readings organized to allow students to evaluate primary sources, test the interpretations of distinguished historians, and draw their own conclusions. The Second Edition provides increased social coverage and new material on the Cuban missile crisis, the social history of the 1950s, and Truman and his decision to use the atomic bomb.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Political Science, School

Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Betsy]

It is kind of sick how much I love reading about this time period.

[Cade]

Your standard Major Problems book. Good selection of historically-relevant documents and recent essays. Lots of good stuff on second-wave feminism and the early LGBT movement that I hadn't read before.

[Cyndi]

The book is divided into section dealing with the Cold War, Emergence of mass consumption, Kennedy, Civil Rights, The Great Society, Radicalism, Women's Liberation, Vietnam, the conservative movement and more. This is done through articles written mostly during the time period being examined and through actual speeches and documents that most Americans have heard of or know parts of but never read in its entirety. Those were fascinating to me and I learned so much about this time period. There were entirely too many holes in my knowledge of how our present-day economy, politics, deficit, foreign policy developed. Unfortunately I have no answers as to how to get us out of our predicament but do understand how we arrived here. Read for school and it was an awesome quarter.

[Leila-Anne]

This was my main textbook for American History. Overall, I really got a lot out of it. It's definitely important to have some supplementary materials as the primary source documents and point-of-view essays can only give you so much if you don't have a basic understanding of the subjects being discussed. I thought it was great though and am glad my professor chose it!

[Colin]

Fascinating. Letters from major world leders concerning various events in their lifetimes, the turnaround of American perspective against the USSR after having been allied to them in WWII, the fear of the Atom bobm. The Cold War from those who dictated it.

[Natasha Ortiz]

For my History 416B Class