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Postmodernity USA
The Crisis of Social Modernism in Postwar America
May 1993 | 192 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
How has America fared in the postmodern world? In this provocative and challenging view of American postmodernity, Anthony Woodiwiss reexamines the political, economic, and social life of the United States over the past 60 years. Exploring the rise and fall of modernism as a social ideology, he offers a distinctive and original interpretation of the unique experience of American modernity and the arrival of the postmodern world. The result is both a novel history of postwar America and a significant contribution to the idea of postmodernism as a social and cultural form. Postmodernity USA also offers lessons for the understanding of class, culture, and politics in late industrial societies.
Introduction
PART ONE: FINDING SOCIAL MODERNISM
New Deal Figurations
The Society that Would be Modern
A Modernizing Discourse
Social Modernism and Class Relations
PART TWO: FORGETTING SOCIAL MODERNISM
The Return of the Referents
The Vietnam War, Protest and Class Relations
The Discourse of Forgetfulness
Social (Post)modernism and Class Relations
Conclusion
