The Cultural Left and the Reagan Era: U.S. Protest and the Central American Revolutions

"The Reagan era is usually seen as an era of unheralded prosperity, and as a high-watermark of Republican success. President Ronald Reagan's belief in "Reaganomics", his media-friendly sound-bites and "can do" personality have come to define the era. However, this was also a time of domestic protest and unrest. Under Reagan the US was directly involved in the revolutions which were sweeping the Central Americas- El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala -and in Nicaragua Reagan armed the Contras who fought the Sandinistas. This book seeks to show how the left within the US reacted and protested against these events. The Nation, Verso Books and the Guardian exploded in popularity, riding high on the back of popular anti-interventionist sentiment in America, while the film-maker Oliver Stone led a group of directors making films with a radical left-wing message. The author shows how the1980s in America were a formative cultural period for the anti-Reaganites as well as the Reaganites, and in doing so charts a new history."--Bloomsbury Publishing. "American dependence on foreign oil has long been described as a serious threat to U.S. national security, and continues to be a political flashpoint even as domestic fracking eases the US' reliance on imported energy. Oil and American Identity offers a fresh perspective on the subject by reframing 'energy dependency' as a cultural discourse with intimate connections to American views on independence, freedom, consumption, abundance, progress and American exceptionalism. Through a detailed reading of primary literature, Sebastian Herbstreuth also shows how the dangers of foreign oil are linked to American descriptions of foreign oil producers as culturally different und thus 'undependable'. Herbstreuth shows how even reliable imports from the Middle East are portrayed as dangerous and undesirable because this region is particularly 'foreign' from an American point of view, while oil from friendly countries like Canada is cast as a benign form of energy trade. Oil and American Identity rewrites the history of U.S. foreign oil dependence as a cultural history of the United States in the 20th century."--Bloomsbury Publishing Annotation The Reagan era is usually seen as an era of unheralded prosperity, and as a highwatermark of Republican success. President Ronald Reagan s belief in Reaganomics, his media-friendly sound-bites and can do personality have come to define the era. However, this was also a time of domestic protest and unrest. Under Reagan the US was directly involved in the revolutions which were sweeping the Central Americas El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala and in Nicaragua Reagan armed the Contras who fought the Sandinistas.This book seeks to show how the left within the US reacted and protested against these events. The Nation, Verso Books and the Guardian exploded in popularity, riding high on the back of popular antiinterventionist sentiment in America, whilethe film-maker Oliver Stone led a group of directors making films with a radical leftwing message. The author shows how the1980s in America were a formative cultural period for the anti-Reaganites as well as the Reaganites, and in doing so charts a new history of a formative era in American cultural and political history."