Forever Learning Institute

This class will pick up the story of the travails of the US, primarily from the political angle, beginning in the 1970s and bring it up to the present. The twilight of New Deal liberalism, the breakup of the Roosevelt coalition, the fracturing of American culture, the rise of the "New Right," the search for identities of all kinds, the Age of Terror and a Global War against it that at first promised conservative dominance and eventually wrecked the party that promoted it, a worldwide Great Recession and then a pandemic that provoked an explosion of populist grievances we're still reckoning with, and more, will be discussed. Readings will be about 20+ pages a week, and will be distributed. $5 copy fee due at first class.