Dec 25, 2009

The House of Blue Leaves | Historical Context

The 1970s were a tumultuous time in American history. One major reason for this was the troubled American economy. A worldwide monetary crisis contributed to the devaluation of the American dollar. Economic resources were drained by the war in Vietnam, as well as the Cold War arms race. An inordinate amount of money was spent by the government to pay for Vietnam, and the national debt ran in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The American economy suffered from stagflation—rapid inflation and faltering businesses. Between...