How We Got Here: The 70s The Decade that Brought You Modern Life—for Better or Worse

For many, the 1970s evoke the Brady Bunch and the birth of disco. In this first, thematic popular history of the decade, David Frum argues that it was the 1970s, not the 1960s, that created modern America and altered the American personality forever. A society that had valued faith, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and family loyalty evolved in little more than a decade into one characterized by superstition, self-interest, narcissism, and guilt. Frum examines this metamorphosis through the rise to cultural dominance of faddish psychology, astrology, drugs, religious cults, and consumer debt, and profiles such prominent players of the decade as Werner Erhard, Alex Comfort, and Jerry Brown. How We Got Here is lively and provocative reading.

David Frum is a contributing editor at Newsweek/Daily Beast and a CNN contributor. He is the author of eight books, including most recently the e-book WHY ROMNEY LOST and his first novel, PATRIOTS.

REVIEWS

• Modern America: Child of the Seventies? Claiming that the seventies made America what it is today, this readable, illuminating book makes a respectable case, by John Attarian, World and I, July 1, 2000
• David Frum's New Book Explains Our Misery, by Rory Leishman, The London Free Press, June 2, 2000
• That ‘70s Revival: Clinging To The Malaise Decade, by Josh Ozersky, Newsday
• That ‘70s Decade, by Steven Biel, The American Prospect, May 8, 2000
• The Decade that wouldn't Die; A new theory declares that everything we are has a touchpoint in the ‘70s, by Amy Wilson, The Orange County Register, April 30, 2000
• Keeping Up With The Joneses; For Kids Of The ‘70s, It's Time To Talk About Our Generation, by Barbara Brotman, Chicago Tribune, April 27, 2000
• The disco decade rediscovered, by Rob Morse, The San Francisco Examiner, April 23, 2000
• 1970s, for better or for worse, by Richard R Roberts, The Indianapolis Star, April 22, 2000
• A serious look at how we got Frum there to here, by Mathew Rees, The Ottawa Citizen, April 17, 2000
• A home-brewed pundit of the American right blames society's decline on the ‘70s, by Michael Taube, The Toronto Star, April 16, 2000
• The ‘70s: Going Back To The Future David Frum's New Book Makes A Case For The '70s Being The Significant Decadeof Our Times, by Peter Worthington, The Toronto Sun, April 6, 2000
• Look where ‘70s brought us, by William Murchison, The Dallas Morning News, April 5, 2000
• The Me Genesis; ‘The 70's' explores the hedonistic decade that brought us to today, by Michael Skube, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 2, 2000
• How We Got Here; Review, by Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, April 1, 2000
• When It All Began to Go Very Wrong-and Right, by Terry Eastland, The American Spectator, March 2000
• An intriguing view Frum the 1970s, by David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen, March 28, 2000
• Sucking in the ‘70s, by Joe Knowles, In These Times, March 20, 2000
• From Socially Aware ‘We' To Self-Indulgent 'Me', by Robert Santelli, The Plain Dealer, March 19, 2000
• Brat Pack: A conservative muses on the selfish generation that began to wreck America sometime after 1969, by David M Oshinsky, The New York Times Book Review, March 12, 2000
• Book on the ‘70s offers us little insight into history, by DJ Morel, The Seattle Times, March 12, 2000
• Author defines ‘70s as decade that made America what it is, by Graydon Royce, Star Tribune, March 8, 2000
• Those unserene ‘70s, by Mona Charen, The Washington Times, March 06, 2000
• Review by Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post, March 5, 2000
• That "Slum of a Decade", by Richard J Whalen, Across the Board, March 1, 2000
• Disco Decade of ‘70s created today's America, by Chuck Moss, The Detroit News, March 1, 2000
• How We Got Here The 1970s: The Decade That Brought You Modern Life For Better or Worse; Review, by James Fallows, Washington Monthly, March 1, 2000
• The Unloved Decade, by Lance Morrow, Time, February 28, 2000
• Socking It To the ‘70s, by Set Gitell, Forward, February 25, 2000
• How'd We Get So Vacuous? The ‘70s, Spin, And Too Much Self, by Katherine A Powers, The Boston Globe, February 13, 2000
• Finding the seeds of the present in grape boycotts, the Vietnam War, by George Daffin, The Washington Times, February 13, 2000
• A Low, Dishonest Decade, by John Podhoretz, National Review, February 7, 2000
• The ‘70s As The Real Revolution, by David Daley, The Hartford Courant, February 1, 2000
• The Seventies Give Nostalgia A Bad Name, by Clyde Haberman, The New York Times, February 1, 2000
• Days of Malaise, by Dan Seligman, Commentary, February 2000
• Though Retro May Be Chic, ‘70s Have A Lot To Answer For, by Linda Seebach, Denver Rocky Mountain News, January 30, 2000
• Bell-Bottom Blues, by Zachary Karabell, Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2000
• Bill Came Due For Sins Of 'Seventies, by Rod Dreher, The New York Post, January 30, 2000
• Two Years That Shook the World, by Frank Gannon, The Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2000
• 1970s, not ‘60s, was real decade of change, by Howard Troxler, St Petersburg Times, January 24, 2000
• How We Got Here: America Since the Seventies-For Better or Worse, Publishers Weekly, January 10, 2000
• 'Blame Yesterday First' Conservatives Find a Ripe New Target in the ‘70s, by Andrei Cherny, The New Democrat, November/December 1999