Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson

According to popular usage, decades are 10-or-so-year chunks of zeitgeist, not strict spans of astronomical time. Calendar and culture are only loosely joined. The '50s didn't end until John F. Kennedy and Leave It to Beaver departed in 1963. It was curtains for the '80s when the Berlin Wall came down in '89, but the glorious '90s didn't commence for another three years when a grungified America began to smell teen spirit. No rigid rule governs these things; others will carve the decades at other joints. Take Kurt Andersen’s book Reset, which argues that the '80s began with the first of Reagan's tax cuts and lasted all the way until the 2008 market crash. Say what...  full article