Ivan R. Dee
Pages: 448
•
Trim: 6¾ x 9¾
978-1-56663-806-7 • Hardback • September 2009 • $27.50 • (£19.99)
978-1-4422-1020-2 • eBook • September 2009 • $26.00 • (£19.99)
William L. O'Neill is professor emeritus of history at Rutgers University and the author of Coming Apart: An Informal History of the 1960s; American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945–1960; and A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II, among several other books. He lives in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Chapter 1: The Elder Bush
Chapter 2: Slaughter: The First Persian Gulf War
Interlude: The Enola Gay Exhibition
Chapter 3: Clinton and the 1992 Election
Chapter 4: What's Right and What's Wrong
Interlude: Buffalo Commons
Chapter 5: Clinton Arrives
Chapter 6: Sex and Other Scandals
Interlude: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Chapter 7: The Trial of the Century
Chapter 8: Higher Education in Crisis
Interlude: Alan Greenspan: The God That Failed
Chapter 9: Clinton: The Second Term
Epilogue
Few historians possess the literary gifts of William O'Neill, whose previous books on the 1950s and the 1960s remain gems of modern American history. O'Neill's great strength is his ability to weave the disparate strands of politics and popular culture into a seamless story—a trend he continues with A Bubble in Time, a witty and wickedly perceptive account of American life in the decade of Desert Storm, Bill Clinton, O. J. Simpson and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is narrative history at its finest.
— David Oshinsky, author of Polio: An American Story
The 1990s truly were, as William O’Neill writes, a 'decade of lost chances.' In this shrewd, pungently written book, he recounts the folly and frivolity of those years while mourning the immense opportunities that Americans squandered.
— Andrew J. Bacevich, author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
Well written and evenhanded, with a taut, perceptive narrative, William O'Neill's A Bubble in Time does for the 1990s what Frederick Lewis Allen and Only Yesterday did for the 1920s.
— Lewis L. Gould, author of The Modern American Presidency
Many of us who survived the fitful years between the end of the Cold War and the start of the so-called War on Terror often had trouble connecting the dots—from The Mother of Battles to Black Hawk Down, from O. J.'s black glove to Monica's blue dress. We all owe a debt to the historical grasp of William L. O'Neill. A Bubble in Time recasts those episodes and others into a gestalt that makes more sense than the sum of its memorable but disjointed parts. And in the process he helps us to a better understanding of the twenty-first-century history we are now living through.
— Robert Shogan, Author of No Sense of Decency: The Army-McCarthy Hearings
From the triumphs and scandals of the Clinton years to the Simpson trial, O'Neill's outstanding recent history has all of the concision, insight, and wit of his wonderful classic, Coming Apart.
— Michael O'Brien, author of Rethinking Kennedy
O'Neill is one of the most impressive scholars of mid-century America, and now he has emerged as an equally important interpreter of an era that is just making the transition from newspaper headlines to history.
— Victor Brooks, author of Boomers
Gives a reader the chance to time travel back to a wild era. . . . Highly readable.
— Connecticut Post
O'Neill applies an understated sense of humor and irony to connect the many dots in his narrative.
— The American Conservative
An intelligent reading of 12 years in recent U.S. history.
— Publishers Weekly
A powerful social history, this deserves a place in any contemporary American history library.
— Midwest Book Review
Like a memorable college course, this book is both entertaining and edifying.
— Adera Causey; Chattanooga Times Free Press
Students of U.S. history will relish this book, which lets us look at the 1989–2001 era with the perspective of the passage of nearly a decade. O'Neill's contribution to understanding that period is to be treasured.
— Dennie Hall; The Oklahoman