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Format for Word document  – VERY IMPORTANT – please follow these directions.

  The body of your Word document must be double-spaced, 12-point, with 1-inch margins, and preferably in Times New Roman, Palatino Linotype, or Garamond font.  Type your name in the upper right-hand corner and put a short title at the top of the first page.  Do not give me a title page. 

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A War for the Soul of America:  A History of the Culture Wars, by Andrew Hartman.

Hartman argues that fights over American culture were constant through the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.  And that these conflicts came out of the 1960s challenges to a “normative America.”  On one side, were those defending those changes of the 1960s, and on the other were those seeking a return to that normative America.  These “wars” over culture didn’t only occur in the arena of electoral politics, but on the many battlefields of the larger American culture – in films and music, in popular culture and television, and in schools and universities. 

After reading this book, write an 800-1000 word essa-y in which you comment on these conflicts.  Why were these “culture wars” so significant to so many people?  How significant were they to the larger story of American history or were they a distraction from other more important trends and events?  Considering what you know about the 1920s, in what ways were these cultural conflicts a continuation of long-fought cultural battles and in what way were these fights of the 80s and 90s new to the American scene?  Are these battles still being fought or has one side appeared to win?