1950s
Prosperity and a managed consensus
Postwar expansion changes the economic horizon while a shared national narrative begins to harden around comfort, security, and possibility.
The book — a 75-year history
The story beneath
the headline.
An expansive view of postwar confidence, social transformation, culture, conflict, and the growing tensions of American life.
A work of history & inquiry
A nation changes once—then keeps changing.
The Turn examines the American experience from 1950 through 2024: a period defined by growth, war, protest, political realignment, media transformation, financial anxiety, and new cultural divisions.
Joiner connects these forces not as isolated eras but as layered conditions. His subject is the world Americans inherited, revised, contested, and tried to make livable for the people closest to them.
The historical arc
Seventy-five years of pressure and change.
1960s
Movements enter the center
Civil rights, protest, generational change, and foreign conflict place the promises of the previous decade under direct moral pressure.
1980s
A new political settlement
Deregulation, market confidence, and cultural contest reorder policy debates and recalibrate expectations around public life.
2000s
Conflict, crisis, and fracture
War, financial instability, media acceleration, and a more polarized politics bring old tensions into sharper focus.
2020s
Discontent in plain view
Pandemic disruption and sustained cultural conflict expose how little room remains between the American ideal and its lived reality.
How to read the turn
History, politics, culture—one connected field.
The book moves across the institutions and lived experiences that define an era. Follow its six central lenses to see the connections between the events, ideas, and cultural habits that formed the present.
Explore the historical themes →