Putting It Together: The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century

Revolutionary technological change, unprecedented global flows of goods and people and capital, an amorphous decades-long War on Terror, accelerating inequality, growing diversity, a changing climate, political stalemate: our present is not an island of circumstance but a product of history. There have been a number of challenges in the twenty-first century including the attacks of 9/11 and the US response bother abroad and at home, the Great Recession, economic stagnation for working Americans, changes and challenges to LGBTQIA+ life and legal protections, the cultural shifts and tensions represented by the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the progress and struggles of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Time marches forever on. The present becomes the past, but, as William Faulkner famously put it, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”[1] The last several decades of American history have culminated in the present, an era of innovation and advancement but also of stark partisan division, racial and ethnic tension, protests, gender divides, uneven economic growth, widening inequalities, military interventions, bouts of mass violence, and pervasive anxieties about the present and future of the United States. Through boom and bust, national tragedy, foreign wars, and the maturation of a new generation, a new chapter of American history is being written as you read this!

Critical Thinking questions

  1. What factors led to the Great Recession?
  2. How have conservatives fared in their efforts to defend American culture against an influx of immigrants in the twenty-first century?
  3. In what ways are Barack Obama’s ideas regarding the economy, education, and the environment similar to those of Bush, his Republican predecessor? In what ways are they different?
  4. How successful has the United States been in achieving its goals in Iraq and Afghanistan?
  5. In what ways has the United States become a more heterogeneous and inclusive place in the twenty-first century? In what ways has it become more homogenous and exclusive?
  6. How have the significant events and key figures of American history post 9/11 influence life in America today?
  1. William Faulker, Requiem for a Nun (New York: Random House, 1954), 73. ↵