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In the latest Explaining History Podcast episode, Dennis Broe discusses his novel Pornocopia, highlighting the intertwined evolution of the gambling and pornography industries in post-war America. By 2024, global porn profits reached $76 billion, overshadowing Hollywood’s $8.5 billion. Broe’s work explores societal conditions influencing these industries and their effects on intimacy and human relationships.
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The post-war era in the West is often viewed through a lens of nostalgia. It was a time of unprecedented growth, rising living standards, and the expansion of the middle class. But this “Golden Age” rested on a single, precarious foundation: cheap oil. In this week’s podcast, I explored how that foundation crumbled in the 1970s, paving the way for the neoliberal revolution that followed. Drawing on Gary Gerstle’s The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, we looked at the pivotal moment when the flow of cheap energy stopped. The Commodity Trap Between 1948 and 1972, global oil production quintupled.…
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The 20th century was defined by competing visions of utopia. While the Soviet Union promised a worker’s paradise achieved through struggle and sacrifice, the United States offered a different kind of salvation: the suburb. In this week’s podcast, I explored the fascinating history of this American dream using Lizabeth Cohen’s seminal book, A Consumer’s Republic. The thesis is compelling: post-war suburbia wasn’t just a collection of houses; it was a political project designed to channel democratic energy into consumption.
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In the mid-1960s, the United States was governed by what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called the “Vital Center”—a liberal consensus that believed in the New Deal at home and the containment of communism abroad. Yet, by 1968, this center had collapsed, assailed not just by the conservative right, but by a ferocious “New Left” that viewed liberalism as morally bankrupt.
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When we look back at the American mid-century—that chrome-plated, neon-lit era stretching roughly from 1945 to 1973—we are often confronted with a cultural memory that feels less like history and more like folklore. It is the America of The Wonder Years and Fred Flintstone: a place where a blue-collar worker with a high school education could own a detached suburban home, drive a new car every three years, and support a family on a single income. In the popular imagination, this was the era where class conflict went to die. It was the moment when the proletariat seemingly dissolved into a vast, amorphous…