Jim Cullen, "1980: America's Pivotal Year" (Rutgers UP, 2022)

Nov 23, 2025

Cultural historian Jim Cullen discusses his book, which explores how 1980 was a crucial turning point in America. He delves into the political landscape, contrasting Jimmy Carter's struggles with Ronald Reagan's rise. Cullen also highlights how popular culture—films, music, and TV—reflected shifting ideologies, from Lennon and Springsteen to the escapism of shows like Dallas. He examines the mall bookstore revolution and how neoliberalism entered the mainstream, connecting these themes to today's cultural context while teasing his future work on Billy Joel and Springsteen.

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INSIGHT

Double Moment Of Cultural Transition

1980 captured a cultural double-moment where 1970s sensibilities coexisted with an emergent neoconservative shift.
Jim Cullen calls this a 'protean' moment visible across politics and popular culture.

INSIGHT

Election As Political Realignment

The 1980 election marked a political realignment from New Deal liberalism toward market-oriented neoliberalism.
Cullen links Reagan's victory to a broader ideological shift visible in culture as well as policy.

INSIGHT

Centralized Media Amplified Culture

Mass media in 1980 was far more centralized, so TV, film, music, and books had outsized cultural impact.
Cullen argues that a handful of hits could shape a national zeitgeist in ways less possible today.

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1980 was a turning point in American history. When the year began, it was still very much the 1970s, with Jimmy Carter in the White House, a sluggish economy marked by high inflation, and the disco still riding the airwaves. When it ended, Ronald Reagan won the presidency in a landslide, inaugurating a rightward turn in American politics and culture. We still feel the effects of this tectonic shift today, as even subsequent Democratic administrations have offered neoliberal economic and social policies that owe more to Reagan than to FDR or LBJ. To understand what the American public was thinking during this pivotal year, we need to examine what they were reading, listening to, and watching.

1980: America's Pivotal Year (Rutgers UP, 2022) puts the news events of the era—everything from the Iran hostage crisis to the rise of televangelism—into conversation with the year’s popular culture. Separate chapters focus on the movies, television shows, songs, and books that Americans were talking about that year, including both the biggest hits and some notable flops that failed to capture the shifting zeitgeist. As he looks at the events that had Americans glued to their screens, from the Miracle on Ice to the mystery of Who Shot JR, cultural historian Jim Cullen garners surprising insights about how Americans’ attitudes were changing as they entered the 1980s.

Jim Cullen is the author of numerous books, including The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, Those Were the Days: Why ‘All in the Family’ Still Matters, and From Memory to History: Television Versions of the Twentieth Century. He teaches history at the newly-founded upper division of Greenwich Country Day School.

Jackson Reinhardt is a graduate of University of Southern California and Vanderbilt University. He is currently an independent scholar, freelance writer, and research assistant. You can reach Jackson at jtreinhardt1997@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @JTRhardt

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