Each one of us is the product of a number of factors - the family in which we grew up, our genetic heritage, the place in which we were raised. But at least as important as each of these factors - and perhaps even more important - is the generation in which each of us came to adulthood, for history touches each one of us. It is easy for us to forget this fact because history so often seems to be something "out there" - something that happens to presidents and prime ministers, to queens and heroes and assassins. But, of course, history also happens to each one of us - even as history is also what each one of us makes.
This paper is centered on an interview with a woman (who is a social worker in Los Angeles) who has just turned 40, a birthday that often provides the chance for individuals to contemplate what direction their life is taking. She said that the major events in her life have lead her to believe that the world is a fragile and often treacherous place but is also one in which individual effort can make a difference.
I realize that a lot of people feel a sense of unease after 9/11, but for me that sense has always been there - or at least since I could remember. I think that a lot of my opinions about how the world works are based in the fact that I was a young child the war in Vietnam was tearing the country apart, and the images on the television every night were of bodies. And then - because I grew up in Berkeley - the images on the streets the next day were not so bloody but were still of a society tearing itself apart.
The first distinct memories that I have from the news of the world beyond my family and my neighborhood were the assassinations of King and Robert Kennedy and pictures from the war. The world seemed to be a very unsafe place and the adults who were supposed to be running the place didn't seem to know what they were doing either.
Her perception of the United States during the 1970s and 1980s is im...