The Great Boom, 1950-2000: How a Generation of Americans Created the World's Most Prosperous Society

In this wide-ranging, entertaining socioeconomic survey, the late Sobel (IBM: Colossus in Transition) provides an optimistic perspective on the advances, upheavals and trends of the last 50 years. Starting from the post-World War II period, he analyzes the factors that produced an unprecedented prosperity that surprised everybody with its vigor and consistency. Although fear of imminent economic disaster may have been lurking after the Great Depression, demand for new housing, new automobiles and all the goods and services associated with the baby boom kept entrepreneurs jumping. Economic good times not only did not stop (as they had in 1929) but were fueled by new developments in society. More women entered the workplace, and civil rights legislation, social reform and raised social consciousness extended economic opportunity to previously excluded groups. While factories hummed and an expanding workforce found employment, Americans pursued leisure activities as never before. Sobel draws the conclusion that, whether it was the inflation of the 1970s or the rash of leveraged buyouts of the 1980s, there is an ""American proclivity to adjust to changing circumstances and to absorb ideas and people and fit them in with what already existed."" In contrasting where we were as a nation in 1950 with where we stand today, he argues persuasively that the United States has evolved into the society that World War II veterans hoped for: ""a place where hard work, education, playing by the rules, and sobriety paid off."" Photographs not seen by PW. (July)