10 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
prevention programs, and to protect those who were infected from discrimina-
tion. In 1987 more than six hundred thousand people marched in Washington,
D.C., to promote “gay power” and equal rights for gays. While some Christian
groups continued to fight against gay rights, other religious bodies supported
them. Reform Judaism, Unitarian Universalists, and some Episcopalian dioceses
began to accept openly gay and lesbian rabbis and ministers.
During its two terms, from 1981 to 1989, the Reagan administration cut
back on social-welfare programs, introduced tax cuts, and increased military
spending, especially in areas related to technology. In addition to a rise of social
conservatism with “the war on drugs,” a call for “family values,” and the emergence
of religious fundamentalism, the decade of the 1980s is characterized by a faith
in free markets and the pursuit of material wealth. Decreased federal regulation
of business led to corporate mergers and takeovers, creating a new wealthy class
epitomized by figures such as the real-estate mogul Donald Trump. As taxes fell
and incomes rose, “baby boomers”—the generation born during the post–World
War II “baby boom” from 1946 to 1964—experienced unprecedented prosperity
and buying power, leading Wolfe to call them the “splurge generation.”
The United States also continued to be an international presence. Cautious
about military involvement overseas because of its experience in Vietnam, the
United States nevertheless intervened in political situations abroad. In contrast
to the lengthy involvement in Southeast Asia, military actions in the 1980s and
early 1990s were precisely identified and executed relatively quickly with the use
of highly advanced technology. In October 1983 Reagan ordered the invasion of
the Caribbean island nation of Grenada after its prime minister was executed
during a military coup by a group allied to Fidel Castro’s Cuba; the war was
over by December. Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush, ordered the invasion
of Panama in 1989 to depose its dictator, Manuel Noriega, who was brought to
the United States, tried and convicted of cocaine smuggling, and sentenced to
forty years in prison. In August 1990 Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered
his troops to invade neighboring oil-rich Kuwait; on 17 January 1991 a United
States–led coalition began air strikes on Iraqi targets, followed on 24 February by
a ground assault. By 28 February the Iraqi troops had been driven out of Kuwait,
and Operation Desert Storm was over.
More than American military might, however, the triumph of global capital-
ism contributed to the end of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 to
separate Communist East Germany from West Germany, came down following
East Germany’s decision in November 1989 to allow its citizens to visit West
Germany. Unable to compete economically with the West, the Soviet Union
disintegrated in 1991. Events in the Balkans and the Middle East occupied the
administration of William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton, whose two terms began in
- To stop the practice of Serbian “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims in the Kosovo
region of Yugoslavia, Clinton authorized the use of American troops in 1999. The
United States also launched Operation Desert Fox, a four-day bombing campaign
against Iraq in December 1998. From 1991 to 2001 American military planes
routinely attacked Iraqi antiaircraft installations inside “no-fly zones” where Iraqi
planes were forbidden to operate.