Middle Way: Freedom & Progressive Change Since World War II

Here’s summary of the broad-gauged set of topics (including the growth of the right wing) that are explored in three “notebooks:” •Notebook I includes a bird’s-eye view of the geopolitics of the war itself and of the World War II era, highlights FDR’s Four Freedoms doctrine, and deals with many of the isms (such as fascism, socialism, and capitalism) then and still at large in the world. •The four chapters in Notebook II develop themes about important changes that cry out for better understanding in today’s world: the military-industrial complex, the communications revolution, Keynesianism and definitions of our mixed economy, the decline of colonialism and the creation of both the UN and its Declaration of Human Rights, and civil rights and civil liberties during the Cold War. •The last part, Notebook III, is a commentary on present challenges to domestic well-being and international equilibrium in the early twenty-first century, a time that may someday be viewed as a watershed period that is as pivotal as the 1940s’ decade proved to be.