We all know of “consensus history,” also remembered as “pluralist social theory,” a theory that Americans, although having political disagreements, some of which sparked violence, had nonetheless always operated within a framework of agreement on basic principles, namely political and economic liberalism. We all know this mode of analysis dominated the historical and social science disciplines during the long political and cultural “fifties” (1947-1965), when most Americans agreed on the premises of the Cold War consensus. We all also know that, in the wake of the political and cultural “sixties” (1965-1974), when this Cold War consensus fell apart, many academic Read more