Randall Woods addresses the major themes characterizing the American experience from the close of World War II. Woods' accessible analysis of the Cold War and Civil Rights and Women's Rights movements, as well as other great changes that led to major realignments of American life, clarify postwar American history. Although this book emphasizes political history, it also covers cultural matters and socio-economic problems such as the growth of dramatic new patterns of immigration and migration, the development of the "counterculture", television and the internet, the interstate highway system, rock and roll, and the exploration of space.