Existing comment:
Contemporary Americans: 1980-Present:
In 1980, Ronald Reagan soundly defeated incumbent president Jimmy Carter by promising that it was "morning again in America." Reagan's optimism was intended to put a decisive end to what he, and many others, perceived as a period of American drift and self-doubt. In foreign policy, the administration instituted a vigorous restatement of American hegemony, especially regarding the Soviet Union; the fall of the Soviet Bloc was the key foreign policy event of the decade. At home, a rising economy helped fuel an ongoing cycle of innovation in both production and marketing including the digital and cyber revolutions that continue to affect our lives and society.
With renewed prosperity and the fall of Soviet Communism, the world seemed poised to enter an unmatched period of peace and prosperity. Such hopes were dashed as America was forced to fight a land war in Iraq (1991) and deal with increasingly radical terrorist groups both at home and abroad. The truck bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 was an ominous foreshadowing of the attacks of September 11, 2001 -- an event whose impact is still being felt and whose consequences are still not fully known. |