1980s

Daily Life in the United States: 1960 - 1990: Decades of Discord

By Myron A. Marty

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This title concentrates on the social history of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. All subjects such as "Kent State" are then related to changes experienced by the American people.

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With Reagan: The Inside Story

By Edwin Meese

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Former attorney general Edwin Meese began his political life as California Governor Reagan's legal advisor in 1966. In this memoir, he credits Reagan with the downfall of the Soviet Union as well as a surge in economic vitality in the 1980s.

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The President & Mrs. Reagan: An American Love Story

By Harry Benson, photographer

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As the Reagans' favorite photographer, Harry Benson has long enjoyed a special relationship with the former first family, photographing them numerous times for Life and Vanity Fair magazines. His photographs of the couple, taken at the White House and at the Reagans' homes and ranches, are intimate and appealing records of a happy and fulfilling marriage. Recently, Nancy Reagan invited Benson to photograph the couple together one last time, a bittersweet occasion given the former president's Alzheimer's Disease. That portrait and others spanning nearly 40 years are gathered together in this book.

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Reckoning with Reagan: America and Its President in the 1980s

By Michael Schaller

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"A professor of history offers an illuminating look at Reaganism as an American phenomenon. Schaller shows how Reagan created an illusion of national prosperity and global power when these were in fact declining, and he examines Reaganomics, the rise of political Christianity, the war on drugs, relations with the Soviet Union, and more."

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Reagan and Thatcher

By Geoffrey Smith

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Drawing on interviews with both leaders and their key advisors, the author traces the close political partnership between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and how that partnership influenced world events.

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Five Past Midnight in Bhopal

By Dominique Lapierre, Javier Moro

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"...the unforgettable story of the tragic industrial accident in Bhopal, India, that killed nearly 30,000 people.It was December 3, 1984. In the ancient city of Bhopal, a cloud of toxic gas escaped from an American pesticide plant, killing and injuring thousands of people. When the noxious clouds cleared, the worst industrial disaster in history had taken place. Now, Dominique Lapierre brings the hundreds of characters, conflicts, and adventures together in an unforgettable tale of love, and hope. Readers will meet the poetry-loving factory worker who unleashes the apocalypse, the young Indian bride who was to be married that terrible night, and the doctors who died that night saving others."

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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

By John Berendt

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Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares.
Available on audio as well as in a movie version starring Kevin Spacey and John Cusack.

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Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America

By Firoozeh Dumas

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"In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father’s glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since. Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot. In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?—a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?—an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi). Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing—without an accent."

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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story

By John Berendt

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Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares.

On Film:
Directed by Clint Eastwood, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a must see. Against the back drop of this charming southern city, great performances by Kevin Spacey and John Cusack bring Berendt's fascinating story to life.

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The Black O: Racism and Redemption in an American

By Steve Watkins

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In 1988, several white managers of the Shoney's restaurant chain protested against the company's discriminatory hiring practices, including an order at some restaurants to blacken the "O" in "Shoney's" on minorities' job applications so that the marked forms could then be ignored or discarded. When the managers refused to comply, they lost their jobs but not their resolve - they sued the company, and their case grew to become one of the largest racial job discrimination class action lawsuits and settlements in American history. The Black O is a fascinating, behindthe- scenes detective story about how the case evolved. The saga is populated with many unforgettable characters. Watkins teaches at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA.

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