Front Porch Politics: The Forgotten Heyday of American Activism in the 1970s and 1980s

In his latest book, historian Foley (Confronting the War Machine) vividly highlights the numerous social and economic issues that citizens felt compelled to redress in the decades following the Vietnam War. According to Foley, what distinguishes this is that "Americans in the 1970s and 1980s were often less motivated by predetermined ideological positions than by the promptings of their own experience." Foley charts responses to issues from environmental degradation and toxic waste at the "Love Canal" in upstate New York, to state and local property tax revolts that began in California, as well as responses to the AIDS crisis. While this era is often depicted as a "rout, of conservatism triumphant and liberalism vanquished," Foley convincingly argues for the power of social justice to affect change. To Foley's credit, he picks movements that represent a spectrum of protest and charts their short-term successes, for both conservatives and liberals. Like any good historian, he offers well-documented roots and conduct of these movements, and astutely addresses unforeseen consequences. 8 pages of b&w illus. (Sept.)