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Series Editor's Preface. <p>Preface.</p> <p>Acknowledgments.</p> <p>1 Losing Control: The United States in 1980.</p> <p>2 Borrowing as a Way of Life: A Dependent Economy and a Fragmenting Society.</p> <p>3 Strangers in the Land: Open Borders and American Identity.</p> <p>4 Glad Morning Again: A Reagan Revolution?</p> <p>5 Reviving and Winning the Cold War.</p> <p>6 The Morning After: The Limitations of Conservatism.</p> <p>7 Gentleman George, Culture Wars, and the Return of Malaise.</p> <p>8 Groping for a New World Order.</p> <p>9 The Era of Globalization.</p> <p>10 Porous Borders and Global Warming.</p> <p>11 The New Age of Bill Clinton.</p> <p>12 Democracy for the World.</p> <p>13 The Comeback Kid v. the Gringrich Who Stole Christmas.</p> <p>14 Since 2001: Decade of Crises.</p> <p>Notes.</p> <p>Select Bibliography.</p> <p>Index.</p>

"Highly recommended. All levels/libraries." (Choice, 1 October 2011) <br />

<b>Michael Heale</b> is Professor Emeritus of American History at Lancaster University, and on retirement became Senior Associate Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford. His published works focus primarily on political history, and include <i>McCarthy’s Americans: Red Scare Politics in State and Nation, 1935-1965</i> (1998), <i>The Sixties in America: History, Politics and Protest</i> (2001), and <i>Twentieth-Century America: Politics and Power in the United States, 1900-2000</i> (2004). He was previously Editor of the <i>Journal of American Studies</i>.

The contemporary history of the United States has been shaped by the country’s interaction and relationships with the outside world. This fascinating account of America’s very recent past covers the Cold War to the War on Terror, the economic ‘malaise’ of the late 1970s to the global financial crisis of 2008-10, and the US-focused environmental campaign in the 1980s to the global movement against climate change of the 2000s. During the last 30 years, the country, which was once largely self-sufficient economically and which restricted immigration, has transformed into one subject to intense international economic competition and the return of mass immigration. <p>Heale’s book focuses on American political and socioeconomic history in this ‘internationalizing’ context, and includes detailed accounts of the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and discusses the election of Barack Obama. It examines the growing fragmentation of American society and the increasing distance between rich and poor under the impact of public policies and global forces. This vibrant and perceptive study of modern American history demonstrates that although it is the most powerful country in the world, the United States in many ways has nonetheless become dependent on others. </p>

"This perceptive and engaging account of the United States from Reagan to Obama, and the country's increasingly complex encounter with global forces, is a model of contemporary history. Combining an assured analysis of the nation's political, economic and social evolution, within a framework of increasing American dependency, the book burnishes Michael Heale's reputation as one of the wisest and most versatile historians of the United States. It is destined to instruct, as well as delight, a wide scholarly and general audience."<br /> —<b>Richard Carwardine</b>, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, UK

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