An examination of the major trends of recent American history, from the end of World War II to the present. Among the major areas of attention are the origins and perpetuation of the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union and the subsequent rise of the national security state, the consolidation and expansion of the limited welfare state, the Civil Rights movement and the Women's movement, the Vietnam War and the social upheaval of the 1960s, the crisis of confidence of the 1970s, and the Reagan revolution of the 1980s.