The Long Seventies Podcast

We discuss the eerily prescient 1975 dystopian film Rollerball, starring James Caan. Skates, motorcycles, fire, blood, murder, drugs, multivision tv and more!

We finish our discussion of John Egerton’s 1974 book The Americanization of the South, focusing on Politics, Industrialization, City growth and Culture. 

We discuss some of the best bareknuckle boxing movies from The Long Seventies, in particular Charles Bronson's Hard Times and Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way But Loose. 

We discuss the meaning of "Americanization" the first three chapters of John Egerton's fascinating 1974 book "The Americanization of Dixie." 

We talk about the 1980 Michael Mann film Thief, starring ultimate tough guy James Caan as a besieged jewel thief working the mean streets of Chicago. 

We discuss the flourishing of the horror genre during the long seventies as hauntology and Grady Hendrix's fantastic book Paperbacks From Hell. 

We discuss the 1988 movie The Beast depicting a lost Russian tank crew hunted by Mujihadeen during the Russian-Afghanistan War. Peak cold war cinema!

We discuss the vast network of tunnels the Vietnamese National Liberation Front dug underneath Cu Chi district 25 miles NW of Saigon, how they were used, how the US Army dealt with this unusual tactic, and how the tunnels origins were in the French Indochina Wars after WWII.

We discuss the 1985 film Turk 182 about a young graffiti artist fighting New York City Hall and finding love along the way.

We discuss 20th century mass communication technologies and how they facilitated the Pop Culture Empire that saw its zenith during the Long Seventies and has since crumbled.