Chronicles the major traumas of the 20th century in America -- the Depression, Pearl Harbor, McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Vietnam, Watergate, Three Mile Island, the Challenger explosion -- how we responded to them as a nation, and what our responses mean.

Discussion Questions -- 11. The Terrorist Attack of September 11 -- Shattered Assumptions -- Causal Explanations -- The War on Terrorism -- Homeland Security -- The Culture of Fear -- Discussion Questions -- III. Epilogue -- 12. Collective Memory -- Generational Effects -- Commemoration -- Popular Culture and Mass Entertainment -- Links Between the Past and the Future -- Discussion Questions -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author

A fascinating exploration of our evolving national psyche, this book chronicles major traumas in recent American history - from the Depression and Pearl Harbor, to the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr., to Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Columbine - how we responded to them as a nation, and what our responses mean. Reflecting on American popular culture as well as the media, this edition includes a new chapter on 9/11 and other acts of terror within the United States, as well as coverage of the Columbia space shuttle disaster. New student-friendly features, including discussion questions and "Symbolic Events" boxes in each chapter, give the book added value as a classroom supplement.

In this book, Ron Eyerman explores the formation of the African-American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an institution or as personal experience, but as collective memory: a pervasive remembrance that grounded a people's sense of itself. Combining a broad narrative sweep with more detailed studies of important events and individuals, Eyerman reaches from Emancipation through the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, the New Deal and the Second World War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond. He offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity-formation which have a truly universal significance, as well as providing a compelling account of the birth of African-American identity. Anyone interested in questions of assimilation, multiculturalism and postcolonialism will find this book indispensable.

Five sociologists develop a theoretical model of 'cultural trauma' & build a new understanding of how social groups interact with emotion to create new & binding understandings of social responsibility.

Focusing on three seminal cases of military defeat--the South after the Civil War, France in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, and Germany following World War I--Wolfgang Schivelbusch reveals the complex psychological and cultural responses of vanquished nations to the experience of loss on the battlefield. Drawing on reactions from every level of society, Schivelbusch charts the narratives defeated nations construct and finds remarkable similarities across cultures. Eloquently and vibrantly told, The Culture of Defeat is a brilliant and provocative tour de force of history.

Memory, Trauma and World Politics focuses on the effect that the memory of traumatic episodes (especially war and genocide) has on shaping contemporary political identities. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich, this book is an incisive treatment of the ways in which the study of social memory can inform global politics analysis.