CHALLENGES TO THE POSTINDUSTRIAL WEST
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ACTIVISM The Baby-boomers – born between 1948 and 1964 Massive uprisings of youth, women and minorities – late 1960s The hippies Student protests in Prague, Paris and Mexico: Spring 1968 The self-immolation of Jan Palach: 1969
THE TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION The Information Age The Spread of Television Culture The Computer Age Opens The Space Age The Revolution in Biology Reproductive Technologies and the Sexual Revolution
POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND CULTURE The changing class structure -- striking changes: % workers well below 10% White collars The service industry Multinationals and postindustrial trading groups: The Airbus production system
THE INVENTION OF YOUTH End of the three-piece suit Redefining the family: revolting against conformity Boom in education Rock music and sexual lyrics The multi-billion dollar market of “rebellion”: resisting adult culture… Heyday of social science
CONTESTING THE COLD WAR ORDER IN THE 1960s Cracks in the Cold War Consensus: no more Superpower toadying… Brandt’s Ostpolitik The Budapest Road: introducing market system elements in the national economy De Gaulle’s “special relationship to NATO Samizdat culture in the USSR Vietnam and turmoil in Asia
THE EXPLOSION OF CIVIC ACTIVISM Civil Rights: Cesar Chavez Martin Luther King Student Protest Jan Palach Women’s Protest Simone de Beauvoir Betty Friedan
THE EROSION OF SUPERPOWER MASTERY IN THE 1970s What to make of the domino theory? Diplomatic breakthroughs Watergate and the ensuing paralysis of US foreign policy Dissent and Repression in the Soviet Bloc
THE WEST, THE WORLD, AND THE POLITICS OF ENERGY The Middle East Six-Day War, 1967 Yom Kippur War, 1973 OPEC – Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries The West’s utter dependence on oil Oil embargo
STAGFLATION Stagnation + double-digit inflation = crisis skyrocketing interest rates discouraged both industrial investment and consumer buying Painful economic downturn for advanced countries Rising, long-term, structural unemployment
1970s TERRORISM Terrorism: kidnappings, bank-robberies, bombings, and assassinations Opposition groups advocated extreme solutions Germany: the Baader-Meinhof group France: Corsican separatists Spain: Basque separatists Ireland: IRA nationalists / Bloody Sunday January 1972
FEMINIST DEBATES Feminism: movement for women’s equality and emancipation Multiple movements with multiple goals Sexism and discrimination in the workplace and at home Tensions along religious lines Tensions along socio-economic lines A product of national politics rather than gender politics?