Talk:History of the United States (1945–present)

Boy, talk about POV. To read all this, you'd think that the Cold War was a good thing, and that Americans' concerns about nuclear annihilation were so trivial it's hardly worth mentioning. Oh, and that the most important thing about recent American history was the effects of American actions on the Soviet economy. This kind of stuff would be better in an article on Soviet-American relations, not in an article about the history of the whole US. This is becoming one of those subtly-slanted-works-posing-as-neutral that give modern historians a bad name. And no references either, tsk tsk. Stan 13:29 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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What about "nowhere near finished" don't you understand? I have basically finished a couple of chunks about the Reagan administration of what will be quite a long series of articles. This article itself will be divided; posting all the content under an article US history (1945-) was a temporary solution.

When I'm finished, you will find the balance between domestic and foreign policy issues that you want. You will also find that your concerns about the "POV" regarding the Cold War discussed. For crying out loud, you're accusing me of only discussing the "traditionalist" interpretation of the Cold War. Until a while ago, I was accused of being the last diehard, unreconstructed, and unapologetic Stalinist on earth. Please, be patient. Only the section on Reganonomics is a finished product. 172

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Soon, this article will probably have links to other articles pertaining to US history (1945-).

How does this format sound? History of the United States (1945-present): Part I, History of the United States (1945-present): Part II, History of the United States (1945-present): Part III, etc.

Since such a format would be best, I'm doing all the work on the 1945-present page for now, not having any idea how many articles of comparable length will be required.

It would be a good idea not to separate the post-World War II US history articles by years or topics. Everything's interconnected, after all.

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I'm going to work on this article offline now; I'll be ready to post the rest in about 12 hours. For those critical, I'll remind them that only the content pertaining to Reagan is my work and (largely) finished. The rest is borrowed from other Wiki articles, since I can see, by virtue of Stan's comments, that I'd better finish this MASSIVE project as soon as possible. 172

This is getting way too long. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a textbook; in-depth material on the dreadfully important subject of Donald Regan's desk calendar is appropriate with Reagan or Regan, but is not an essential part of the history of the US as a whole. Think about from the point of view of the poor readers; they need 1-2 pages that covers the big picture, and if something is of interest, they'll follow the links to specific topics. To pick an example sitting next to me right now, OCD's Rome article manages to survey a thousand years of Roman history in 80Kbytes or so. Instead of going into detail about what Caligula had for lunch, the article summarizes with the single word "extravagant" and puts the details into his own article.

Thinking about it another way, very few people are going to read all the way to the end of a very long article, whether it's in one piece or several, so it's mostly wasted effort anyway, and material redundant with other articles will likely get cut back down to just the link. Stan 16:03 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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Calm down and read thoroughly. First, I have said that this article will be divided; links to a series of articles will soon be posted on this page with no other content. Readers interested in one topic or one era will not have to read through a long article, but will be able to find what they're searching for readily. Second, the reference to Don Regan that you're mentioning was an anecdote illustrating an important point about Reagan's style of governance. It was an interesting example that could be replaced with many others that I can think of at the moment. I'm sure that you realize that in history an interesting piece of trivia here and there can help develop certain points and make for a readable style.

Rather than subjecting me to your misplaced hostility, how about making some some constructive comments about the finished section (Reagan domestic policy, a topic covered nowhere else on Wiki in depth)? 172

OK then - Reagan domestic policy at this level of detail should go into a specialized article about the Reagan administration, and the article should have two sentences tops - mention the different terms since that is confusing to readers too young to have been there, and something about Reagonomics resulting in deficits. There's a little bit more to American history than budget fights inside the Beltway - the 80s were when computers became widespread, and mid-decade regular Americans started to get more worried about nuclear holocaust, for instance. What about trends in immigration, state governments, eating habits? What was happening that wasn't being written about by the superficial newspaper reporters regurgitating politicians' sound bites? Stan 19:32 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

One more comment - dividing a long narrative is not the answer. If you divide by years, then you end up with a chronology. If you divide logically, then somewhere you'll have to explain the logic somewhere - not long from now, "US History: The Reagan Years" will be just as puzzling as the "US History: The Van Buren Years" would be now. Instead, you need to think top-down; first, most readers just want a quick high-level intro - they're not clear on whether Kennedy is before or after Nixon, and will be surprised to learn that the Korean War they saw on MASH reruns occurred right in the middle of the baby boom. The overview's main functions are to inform about the key events or trends, and pique the reader's interest enough to jump to the articles that go into depth on Truman foreign policy or Reagan domestic policy or whatever. While Wikipedia's capacity is effectively infinite, the reader's is not. I have yet to get all the way through History of Brazil for instance, even though I think it will help explain some items I don't understand in my stamp collection; just too long and dreary. Stan 20:13 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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I did a bit of work on the civil rights section. I cut out a large paragraph on Brown vs. Board of Education. I felt it was more detail than was necessary, and it is also already available on the Brown page. SimonP 18:57 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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You tell me that two lines would suffice when it comes to the United States economy in the 1980s on one hand but lecture me on all the details that I’m supposedly overlooking on the other? You seem to be mentioning "nuclear holocaust" over and over again, but history articles are not solely geared toward the interests of one individual.

Either be patient and shut up about content that you feel is not being included or contribute some god damn content yourself. We can go on forever about the shortcomings of this article, which is probably less than one fifth of the way to being finished. I've had it with quibbling with you over your misplaced hostility. 172

So in response to my constructive comments, I get curse words? I think the "misplaced hostility" is in your own mind. I mention nuclear holocaust because it was something that was on people's minds (I don't know how old you are, so don't know if it's something you experienced personally or not), and there are authorities who identify a causal connection between the threat of nuclear annihilation and the material/sensual gratification culture of post-1945 America. I will wait to see how you finish this, but since I think it's already excessive in length and has too much detail in less-important areas, my contribution will most likely take the form of pruning and moving to more appropriate locations. Of course, the usual Wikipedia way is just to do a surprise hack-n-slash, so I think I'm being pretty nice in encouraging you towards a better design. Stan 22:38 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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I've just been quitting smoking, which probably should disqualify me from reading criticisms. I was out of line.

I just think that you're being slightly impatient. I'll address social history and divide the article up into subtopics so that readers will readily find information that interests them, which seem to be your principal concerns. 172