29 The Search for Order in an Era of Limits

1973–1980

The succession of crises in the 1970s, including the ongoing war in Vietnam, antiwar protests on campuses, the Watergate scandal, and the economic recession, strained that quintessential American characteristic: optimism. It was hard for Americans to be hopeful when the indicators pointed to America’s declining influence in an increasingly globalized economy. Though still the leading superpower, the United States suffered a humiliating defeat in Vietnam. The crisis between Israel and its Arab neighbors pulled America into the quagmire of the Middle East with devastating effects on oil imports that hastened the economic recession and stalled the postwar economic boom Americans had begun to take for granted. The period ended with another humiliation: Iranian revolutionaries attacked the U.S. embassy and held Americans hostage for 444 days, unmistakable proof that Henry Luce’s “American Century” had ended. These international defeats occurred in the context of a political and cultural referendum on the 1960s, as conservatives tried to curb what they saw as liberalism’s excesses. The polarized politics of the decade defined the electoral map for the next generation as Americans grappled with this new era of limits.