"I'm wasted and I can't find my way home :" the end of the sixties -- '"A decent interval :'" America's exit from Vietnam, 1969-1973 -- "Should have destroyed the tapes" : the collapse of the Nixon presidency -- Bringing the war home : last spasms of the radical left -- "The American ride is ending :" energy crises and a post-industrial economy -- Looking out for number one : the me decade and the endurance of social commitment -- "What is special order 937?" : film and television in the seventies -- "Bridge over troubled water :" popular music in the seventies -- "A crisis of confidence :" national politics and foreign policy -- Epilogue : "are you better off now....:" the promise and reality of the eighties