Hours after telling you that the Obama presidency is regularly compared to the Carter administration, this is what I read :

American decline is the specter haunting our politics. This could be President Obama's undoing—or it could provide him with the opportunity to revive his presidency.

Fear of decline is an old American story. Declinism ran rampant in the late 1970s and early '80s. Stagflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, anxiety over Japan's then-commanding economy and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan all seemed to be symbols of a United States no longer in control of its destiny.

The NYTimes has an interesting review of a book on the beginning of Prohibition. How does prohibition of alcohol fit in with the rest of the 1920s ? Here's a short paragraph from the NYTimes review which I think you might find interesting since it places the 18th Amendment in the context of the conflict of cultures of the 1920s :

• "The 18th Amendment was a rarity in that it limited the rights of the individual rather than the activities of the government, thereby guaranteeing a hostile reception. As such, it holds the distinction of being the only constitutional amendment ever to be repealed. Which leads one to ask: How did this happen in the first place? Why would Americans curtail their precious right to drink?
• “Last Call,” by Daniel Okrent, provides the sobering answers. Okrent, the author of four previous books and the first public editor of The New York Times, views Prohibition as one skirmish in a larger war waged by small-town white Protestants who felt besieged by the forces of change then sweeping their nation — a theory first proposed by the historian Richard Hofstadter more than five decades ago. Though much has been written about Prohibition since then, Okrent offers a remarkably original account, showing how its proponents combined the nativist fears of many Americans with legitimate concerns about the evils of alcohol to mold a movement powerful enough to amend the United States Constitution."

Political ads

For the political ads of the 1950s and 60s : this is a link to an earlier posting on this blog.

For the podcast that might help you prepare for this week's seminar : http://dl.free.fr/iUcaFbb8c

A report on the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975 by a BBC journalist for News at Ten. It's all very stiff upper lip and restrained and yet very moving. Note the comments by viewers explaining that many Vietnamese were trying to flee the communist regime and saying that Americans should take credit for the war instead of reading it as an illegal war waged by war criminals (that's what the reference to Jane Fonda means).

Here's another video by a British reporter :