hing kept in the back of the national consciousness, but it is also something that comes to the fore when a hint of financial crisis appears. In 1987 the stock market dropped suddenly and created fears of a new depression. As the country approaches the tenth anniversary of that event, some have started wondering if it could happen again. The stock market has reached new heights in the decade since, and some remember how optimistic the market was in 1929 before the crash. While we have instituted controls to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, we remain uncertain if our controls will be effective.
Literature embodies, preserves, and recreates the life of a time. It is especially valuable for placing a human face on history, but it may not be as valuable for the details of history. Literature is the writer's view of the forces of history. A written history is also the view of the writer of that history, but the historian uses different tools than the novelist and seeks a different kind of truth. Both are valuable windows to another time and place.
4. The Cold War was not fought directly on American or Russian soil but came into play in various developing nations in the post-colonialist period. The Soviets attempted to make inroads in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia while the west sought to keep these areas independent. These other regions became surrogates where battles were fought so the nuclear powers would not start a direct war that would truly endanger the entire world. The Cold War corresponds roughly with what is called the Nuclear Age, at least until 1989, and the tensions of the Cold war were very much bound with the existence and the threat of the atomic bomb. This fact is noted in the "Memorandum for the President" at the begi
...