ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at most important changes in the American political landscape. World War II left an enduring legacy that permanently altered American politics: big government. When the war ended, millions of mustering-out veterans craved housing of their own. In the decades following World War II, education became America's biggest industry. The 1980 census was the first ever to report that a majority of adults in every state were high school graduates. Increasing educational levels—especially, increasing percentages of the population with college degrees—have altered, the face of politics. The American family survives into the 1990s, but it is a changing institution. The mobility of the population has further complicated political participation because fewer and fewer Americans have deep and lasting ties to the communities or states in which they live and work. The invention and mass marketing of new technologies changed the way Americans communicated, conducted their businesses, educated their children, planned their families, managed their homes, and entertained themselves.
