The Global 1980s takes an international perspective on the upheaval across the world during the long 1980s (1979–1991) with the end of the Cold War, a move towards a free-market economic system, and the increasing connectedness of the world.
The 1980s was a decade of unimaginable change. At its start, dictatorships across the world appeared stable, the state was still seen as having a role to play in ensuring people’s well-being, and the Cold War seemed set to continue long into the future. By the end of the decade, dictatorships had fallen, globalisation was on the march and the opening of the Berlin Wall paved the way for the end of the Cold War. Divided into four chronological parts, sixteen chapters on themes including domestic politics, the global spread of democracy, international relations and global concerns including AIDS, acid rain and nuclear war, explore how world-wide change was initiated both from above and below. The book covers such topics as ideological changes in the liberal democratic west and socialist east, protests against nuclear weapons and for democratic governance, global environmental worries, and the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Offering an overview of a decade in transition, as the global order established after 1945 broke down and a new, globalised world order emerged, and supported by case studies from across the world, this truly global book is an essential resource for students and scholars of the long 1980s and the twentieth century more generally.
Author(s): Jonathan Davis
Series: Decades in Global History
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 298
City: Abingdon
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Notes
PART 1: 1979–1982
1. Revolutions in east and west: Iran and Nicaragua
The Shah’s Iran: scattering revolutionary seeds
The fall of the Shah and the hostage crisis
Nicaragua: from dictatorship to revolution
The Sandinistas and the Contras
Conclusion
Notes
2. Thatcher, Reagan and free markets: ghost towns, rust belts and a new individualism
The emergence of the New Right
Thatcher’s early years: bringing harmony or division?
Reagan and the pursuit of ‘smaller government’
Popular culture and the new mood
Conclusion
Notes
3. Inside the Soviet bloc: the end of détente and the rise of Solidarność
The end of détente: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Challenging Soviet rule: the Polish crisis and the rise of Solidarność
Brezhnev’s last years: the end of the Soviet system’s ‘golden age’
The people’s democracies
Conclusion
Notes
4. Africa and decolonisation: twenty years after the ‘winds of change’
1980: towards a united economic plan
Politics and society in Africa: case studies
Senegal
Nigeria
Zaire
Conclusion
Notes
PART 2: 1983–1985
5. Changes in China: the consequences of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms
Deng’s economic reforms
Democratic hopes curtailed
Society in Deng’s new China
Conclusion
Notes
6. Bombs, jobs and famine: music and global concerns
Nuclear war
Financial worries
‘Feed the world’
Conclusion
Notes
7. Global crises: AIDS, acid rain and the ozone layer
From GRID to AIDS
The world responds
Acid rain and the ozone layer: global environmental problems
Reagan and acid rain: profit first, pollution second
Conclusion
Notes
8. Mikhail Gorbachev: new man, new thinking
The new man in the Kremlin
Gorbachev and the early reforms
‘New thinking’ in foreign policy: Gorbachev courts Thatcher
When two tribes go to … talks
Conclusion
Notes
PART 3: 1986–1988
9. Making a ‘modern’ decade: computers, videos and yuppies
The digital revolution at work
Yuppies and the new modern era
The digital revolution at home
Conclusion
Notes
10. The first wave of Indian liberalisation: the Rajiv Gandhi era
The economy in transition
Turning India outwards
Conclusion
Notes
11. South Korea’s twisted path to democracy
The democratic challenge crushed
The changing global context and its domestic influence
New democracy, old habits
Conclusion
Notes
12. The Middle East in turmoil: Iran–Iraq and the first intifada
The regional setting
The Iran–Iraq War
Arms for Iraq. Or Iran. Or both
Israel and the Palestinian intifada
Conclusion
Notes
PART 4: 1989–1991
13. Reagan and Thatcher depart, a new world order emerges
Reagan’s mixed economic legacy
Reagan’s reinvented America
Thatcher’s economics: success and failures
Thatcher’s Britain
Conclusion
Notes
14. Latin America’s transition to democracy: Chile and Haiti
Pinochet’s Chile
Rejecting Pinochet: Chile’s transition to democracy
Haiti after the Duvaliers
Aristide against the old order
Conclusion
Notes
15. ‘Free Nelson Mandela’: the end of apartheid in South Africa
South Africa: friend or foe?
The deepening crisis
Negotiations begin
Mandela: from prisoner to citizen
Conclusion
Notes
16. The communist world breaks
Gorbachev: hero and villain?
1989: communism crumbles in Eastern Europe
Endings
Conclusion
Notes
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
