The Reagan economic policy--Reaganomics--deserves fuller consideration. The stimulating effect of tax cuts can be easily understood. Weighing a variety of economic elements makes the matter more complex. Help students understand the interaction of a number of elements that the president dealt with in the early 1980s: the tax cut, interest rates, GNP, the federal deficit, the value of the dollar and rate of exchange, and the trade deficit. See Frank Ackerman, Reaganomics (1982); David A. Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: How the Reagan Revolution Failed (1986); and Sidney Weintraub and Marvin Goodstein, editors, Reaganomics in the Stagflation Economy (1983).For differing views on Reagan, see William E. Pemberton, Exit with Honor: The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan (1997), and Haynes Johnson, Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years (1991).

Abortion policy in the United States became by the end of the 1980s a matter not only of controversy but of passion. A lecture tracing the history of state and federal abortion policy will be a valuable aid to student understanding. Care should be taken to explain the circumstances of the contraceptive case Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the abortion case Roe v. Wade (1973), the development of improved medical techniques dealing with premature birth, the involvement of religious organizations in political controversy, restrictions on medical advice concerning abortion by clinics receiving federal assistance, and the increasingly restrictive decisions of the Supreme Court in recent years toward a woman's right to abortion. Chapter 12, "The Right of Privacy," in Craig R. Ducat and Harold W. Chase, editors, Constitutional Interpretation: Cases, Essays, Materials (third edition; 1983), provides a fine legal perspective. See also John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (1987); Nanette J. Davis, From Crime to Choice: The Transformation of Abortion in America (1985); James C. Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy (1979); Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 (1995); and Eva R. Rubin, editor, The Abortion Controversy: A Documentary History (1994). For a personal "as told to" account by Roe herself, see Norma McCorvey with Andy Meisler, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe v. Wade and Freedom of Choice (1994).

The immigration laws of 1965 and 1986 have had profound effect. The 1965 law created changes that led to the great shift to Western Hemisphere and Asian immigrants as a majority. The 1986 law attempted to deal with the growing problem of illegal or undocumented aliens. The complexion of America is changing, and these laws deserve a careful exposition. An excellent short summary is available in Reed Ueda, Postwar Immigrant America: A Social History (1994). See also David M. Reimers, Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America (second edition; 1992); Thomas Kessner and Betty Boyd Caroli, Today's Immigrants: Their Stories (1982); and Nancy H. Montwieler, The Immigration Reform Law of 1986: Analysis, Text, Legislative History (1987).

The uncertainties of banking were clearly revealed by the Bush administration's savings-and-loan crisis. Did this event bear any similarity to the crash that followed the end of the Second Bank of the United States? Or to the panic of 1907 that led ultimately to the Federal Reserve Act? Or to the collapse of banks in the Great Depression? Students will need more than a little guidance to understand the recurrence of massive bank failures. Is it that we really don't understand how banks work? Is it greed? or malfeasance? See the short essay by Michael A. Bernstein, "The Contemporary American Banking Crisis in Historical Perspective," Journal of American History 80 (March 1994): 1382-1396. Bernstein offers a good bibliography.

Most Americans saw Operation Desert Storm as the righting of an egregious wrong. Iraq, however, claimed legitimate rights to Kuwait. The brutal nature of Saddam Hussein's regime was not the issue, but it did influence American opinion. What was the basis for Iraqi claims? Why was the United States unprepared to take them seriously? Did the United States have unannounced motives in going to war? See Theodore Draper, "The True History of the Gulf War," New York Review of Books 39 (January 30, 1992): 38-45; Jean Edward Smith, George Bush's War (1992); and Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals' War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (1995).