In this book, Bradford Martin an associate professor of history at Bryant University in Rhode Island, illuminates a different 1980s than many remember—one whose history has been buried under the celebratory narrative of conservative dominant power. Written as a social history, The Other Eighties offers an ambitious revision of the decade, one that emphasizes the vitality of grassroots and creative dissent. Marginalized from mainstream politics by conservative electoral victories and the Democratic Party’s concurrent retreat from the ‘full-throated progressive idealism’ (p. xi) of the New Deal and the War on Poverty, leftist politics in the 1980s nonetheless remained animated in grassroots settings.
The book is organized into eight concise chapters, each examining a separate movement, including the campaign against nuclear proliferation, the Central American Solidarity Movement, activism to halt US complicity with South African apartheid, popular culture and the ‘culture wars’, the politics of post-punk music, African-American politics and …show more content…
In his preface, Martin offers some integrative conclusions. But the rest of the book feels disjointed and anecdotal. Each chapter describes a different form of activism with little interrelationship or engagement with the broader story.
Martin's study doesn't delve very far, if at all, into the undercurrent of the 1980s, it simply highlights the flipside to the mainstream issues of the time. In that, it was informative and well-researched, but far from innovative. The book devotes less analysis to economics than might be expected. More insight should have been given to this
The book is organized into eight concise chapters, each examining a separate movement, including the campaign against nuclear proliferation, the Central American Solidarity Movement, activism to halt US complicity with South African apartheid, popular culture and the ‘culture wars’, the politics of post-punk music, African-American politics and …show more content…
In his preface, Martin offers some integrative conclusions. But the rest of the book feels disjointed and anecdotal. Each chapter describes a different form of activism with little interrelationship or engagement with the broader story.
Martin's study doesn't delve very far, if at all, into the undercurrent of the 1980s, it simply highlights the flipside to the mainstream issues of the time. In that, it was informative and well-researched, but far from innovative. The book devotes less analysis to economics than might be expected. More insight should have been given to this