Richard H. Pells
Richard H. Pells
Contributor
BIOGRAPHY

Professor of History, University of Texas, Austin. Author of Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years.

Primary Contributions (1)
A long line of unemployed men in coats and hats stands outside a soup kitchen in Chicago, with a storefront sign reading Free Soup, Coffee and Doughnuts for the Unemployed.
Great Depression, worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world, sparking fundamental changes in economic institutions, macroeconomic policy, and economic theory.…
READ MORE
Publications (4)
War Babies The Generation that Changed America
War Babies The Generation that Changed America (2014)
By Richard H. Pells
War Babies: The Generation That Changed America examines the lives and careers of Americans born between 1939 and 1945. No one has written such a book about this generation. War Babies deals especially with musicians and composers like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkel; with film directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese; with actors like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro; with athlete/activists like Muhammad Ali; with journalists like Bob Woodward and Carl...
READ MORE
Modernist America Art, Music, Movies, and the Globalization of American Culture
Modernist America Art, Music, Movies, and the Globalization of American Culture (2011)
By Richard H. Pells

A revelatory new take on the long-held belief that America has dominated world culture



America's global cultural impact is largely seen as one-sided, with critics claiming that it has undermined other countries' languages and traditions. But contrary to popular belief, the cultural relationship between the United States and the world has been reciprocal, says Richard Pells. The United States not only plays a large role in shaping international entertainment and tastes,...

READ MORE
Not Like Us How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, And Transformed American Culture Since World War II
Not Like Us How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, And Transformed American Culture Since World War II (April 1998)
By Richard Pells
Debunking the myth of the "Americanization" of Europe, a noted historian presents an authoritative and engrossing cultural history of how America tried to remake Europe in its own image, and how the Europeans successfully retained their identity in the face of American mass culture. Richard Pells provides a new paradigm for understanding the survival of local and national cultures in a global setting.
The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s
The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s (September 1989)
By Richard H. Pells

An excellent study of American intellectuals in the 40's and 50's.