9.1 Contextualizing Period 9

By 1980 many Americans had lost faith in the federal government. The Vietnam War had ended badly, and the Watergate scandal had forced President Nixon to resign in 1974. Stagflation, meaning high inflation and high unemployment at the same time, squeezed families; inflation hit about 13.5 percent in 1980. Iranian students had held 52 Americans hostage since November 1979, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that December ended the thaw in Cold War tensions known as détente.

Meanwhile a conservative movement had been growing for decades. It drew on anticommunists, critics of big government and taxes, white suburban and Sun Belt voters, and newly active evangelical Christians. Ronald Reagan, a former actor and governor of California, united these groups and defeated President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

• Conservatism and the role of government: conservatives won lower taxes and less regulation, but popular programs like Social Security and Medicare survived, and debates over the safety net, trade and banking continued.
• The end of the Cold War: a U.S. military buildup, diplomacy with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union's own collapse ended the Cold War by 1991. The U.S. then had to decide how to use its power as the only superpower.
• A new economy: computers, the internet and global trade raised productivity, while factory jobs and union membership declined and inequality grew.
• Demographic change: immigration from Latin America and Asia, and the continued shift of people to the South and West, changed culture and politics.
• The war on terrorism: after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. fought long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and argued about security versus civil liberties.

Many Period 9 developments grow out of Period 8. The rise of conservatism was partly a reaction against the Great Society and the cultural changes of the 1960s. The Immigration Act of 1965 made the new immigration from Asia and Latin America possible. Environmental laws of the 1970s set up later debates over climate change. Computer research funded during World War II and the Cold War laid the groundwork for the digital revolution.

Some patterns are much older. Debates over the size of government echo the Gilded Age and the New Deal. Arguments over immigrants and assimilation recall the nativism of the late 1800s and the 1920s. Rising inequality led some writers to call the 1990s and 2000s a 'second Gilded Age.'

Period 9 carries only about 4–6 percent of the exam weight, tied with Period 1 for the smallest share. The DBQ covers only 1754–1980, so Period 9 shows up in multiple-choice questions, in short-answer questions (which reach only to 2001) and possibly as the later end of a broad long essay prompt. Focus on the big trends and key evidence rather than memorizing every event since 1980.