NB&P: Benjamin Alpers - Happy Days

The hosts chat with Dr. Alpers about his recent book _Happy Days: Images of the Pre-Sixties Past in Seventies America (2024, Rutgers University Press).  The 1970's are frequently seen as a watershed period, an era from which sources of 21st-century American culture began to flow. But the 1970's are also seen as a particularly backward-looking time, seen by many critics as morbidly nostalgic for times before the wrenching changes that were associated with the 1960's. _Happy Days_ explores the relationship of the 1970's American culture to the pre-Sixties past through four case studies. Far from mere nostalgia, Americans' diverse reimaginings of the past were a significant part of what made the 1970's so culturally foundational for the decades to come. Interview by Public Humanities Intern Silma Nurfadhilah.