1980: America’s Pivotal Year

Many people are aware that 1980 was an important moment in U.S. history: at a time of economic stagnation at home and international defeat abroad, it represented a turning point in bringing Ronald Reagan to the presidency and inaugurating a conservative era in American politics. What’s less well known is how the popular culture of 1980 also marked a pivotal transition. By boring in with granular detail on a few key touchstone areas-politics, music, film, television, and publishing-1980 describes a zeitgeist as it shifts, capturing those elements that harkened back toward the seventies as they jostled with others that pointed forward to the eighties. The effect is analogous to capturing in slow motion the mysterious but unmistakable process by which a child grows. The result is a lively, revealing, and informative account not just of a single year and the social milieu of an era, but also a book that traces some of the most profound rhythms of American history more generally. From who shot J.R. to The Dukes of Hazzard; from John and Yoko to the end of disco and the rise of rap; from Heaven’s Gate to Private Benjamin; and from Jimmy Carter’s defeat to the rise of Ronald Reagan, Jim Cullen shows how 1980 can be seen as a pivot point in American culture–a time of change that ushered in the current era.