When America Roared
How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--and Led Us to Today
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
LIMITED TIME OFFER
Get 3 months for £0.99/mo
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.
When America Roared
Pre-order Now for £19.19
-
Narrated by:
-
By:
-
Jonathan Kaufman
About this listen
In January 1980, America seemed broken. Inflation raged. Interest rates topped 20 percent. Americans were held hostage in Iran. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with impunity. Japan was eating American manufacturing alive. Three broadcast networks controlled what Americans watched. The idea of a Black president seemed fantasy. China had been closed for 30 years. The Berlin Wall seemed permanent.
Ten years later, everything had changed. The economy was booming. The Soviet Empire was collapsing. American businesses were competitive again.
In this immersive, character-driven narrative, Jonathan Kaufman lays bare the contending ideologies—and people—who battled for control of business, media and politics in the 1980s, shaping the way we live today. As Ronald Reagan and conservatives pummeled the Democratic party, as Jack Welch redefined what it meant to be the leader of a Fortune 500 company, and as deregulation spearheaded by Mark Fowler allowed television to become the hundreds of specialized and partisan channels we watch now, the groundwork was laid for our current economic and political conflicts. The decade also launched social and political movements whose victories transformed the country. Karen Nussbaum and Jane Fonda galvanized a struggling women’s movement, Evan Wolfson spearheaded the gay community’s legal fight against a hostile government, and Barack Obama cut his teeth as a community organizer in Chicago—all building long-lasting movements whose success progressives can learn from today.
From pivotal moments in board rooms and court rooms, to cultural touchstones like the birth of hip hop and of conservative talk radio, as well as the author’s eyewitness experiences in Tiananmen Square and Prague, When America Roared is the riveting story of how the 1980s built the world we live in, for better and for worse. It is the decade that made us—and the key to understanding where we go from here.
No reviews yet