A Troubled Feast

William E. Leuchtenburg, Columbia University. Quoted from the author's Preface: [A Troubled Feast] seeks to fill a large gap in courses in the history of the United States by providing the first account of the national experience from 1945 to the present day [1973]. Quoted from Back Cover--The Essence of this book is suggested by its title. The "troubled" aspects may well be the more familiar--the frightful assassinations of public men, the malignant effects of two Asian wars, the endemic violence, the persistence of social ills. Acknowledgment of the reality of the "feast"-that is, the widespread affluence made possible by the prodigious expansion of the economy-has often been more grudging. Yet in these years millions were lifted out of poverty, millions more into the ranks of the middle class. And it was the abundance that shaped many of the contours of American society in the nearly three decades since 1945, especially the consumer culture in its multifarious ramifications, and that exerted a decisive influence upon not only the troubles of this era but the too little noticed advances.