Jefferson Cowie's Stayin Alive Analysis
Jefferson Cowie’s Stayin’ Alive is a historical analysis of the voices and perspectives from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Cowie, a historian, utilized rhetoric from the everyday Americans to the powerful politicians. This helped to provide accurate depictions and layout the themes of the book about the realities of this time. Whether a person had political beliefs that were to the left, right, radical, liberal, or conservative; times were changing. Stayin’ Alive describes how the fundamental realignment during this time can be broken into two mini books: Hope and Confusion and Despair in the Order (Cowie 11). These chapters highlight how a loss of power and a disappearing sense of identity happened to the blue-collar workers that defined America.
Jefferson Cowie has a background to match the historical analysis of
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With Reagan’s hopeful words in mind, Americans moved into the 1980s after living through a unique two decades of the changing working class.
Stayin’ Alive had many strengths and few weaknesses. Cowie was an effective writer intertwining political voices with the American blue-collar workers making it a highly-recommended book. Themes like the political discontent and confusion stated throughout this essay were evident in Cowie’s work. The biggest weakness is the long chapters within the mini books which made it difficult to understand where and what was coming next contextually.
Stayin’ Alive by Jefferson Cowie was a historical narrative of the political and labor movement in America. Politics and values aligned. With final words from Cowie, it is recognized that the political ideologies changed during the 1970s but just as influential was the “music, television, and film turned the hopeful crosscurrents of the early years toward a rather unified message: save yourself or face irrelevance” (Cowie
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