Culture War

<p> What didn't you like about the 1990s--the peace or the prosperity? Setting aside nostalgia for the end of the 20th century this book takes a candid look at the decade after the Cold War and before 9/11 when America's culture war began with the election of a media-savvy Baby Boomer president (and his liberal feminist wife). Bill Clinton's postmodern administration betokened gay equality an education-based labor force and a race and gender-diverse workplace and government panicking conservatives and sparking the 1994 Republican Revolution.</p><p> Meanwhile with the advent of the 24-hour cable news cycle and the Internet a media punditocracy arose. Parsing every event from the O.J. Simpson trial to the Monica Lewinsky scandal commentators and talk show hosts spun news politics and pop culture until they became one thing. Beginning with the Red and Blue partitioning of America that would nurture the Tea Party and ending with the 9/11 attacks this examination of the 1990s demonstrates how the decade shaped the world we live in today.</p>