The U.S. bicentennial in 1976 prompted an extraordinary national conversation about the history and politics of the United States. In the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam, and in the midst of economic and energy crises, how could the United States celebrate national greatness? How could a nation with colonial attitudes and possessions celebrate the 200^th birthday of its anti-colonial revolution? Should Native Americans participate in the commemoration of a national revolution that damaged and destroyed indigenous nations? What about the many Americans whose ancestors never consented to be governed by the United States and those consistently denied the freedom, liberty, equality, and justice promised by the Declaration of Independence?

Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s weaves together five narratives. First, it offers new historical perspectives on the 1970s, treating the bicentennial as one of the decade’s most significant events and arguing that the decade has been misrepresented as a mere interlude between the liberal 1960s and the conservative 1980s. Instead we see the bicentennial as a critical moment in a transformational decade for partisan politics, urban and anti-urban policies, and progressive activism.

Second, Bicentennial uses the commemoration to reconsider national political realignment and the rise of the New Right. Focusing in particular on the bicentennial-inspired courtship of Philadelphia’s Democratic Mayor Frank Rizzo and Republican U.S. President Richard Nixon, the subsequent failure of Republican President Gerald Ford to honor Nixon’s bicentennial funding promises to Philadelphia, and Rizzo’s key endorsement of Democrat Jimmy Carter in the presidential election of 1976, the book argues that the bicentennial was a critical moment in the history of national political realignment. 

Third, the book explores the bicentennial’s contested politics of national commemoration, with five distinct visions competing for public attention: the patriotic bicentennial favored by national political leaders, the capitalist “buy-centennial” promoted by business leaders, the bicentennial urban renaissance supported by city planners, the revolutionary bicentennial favored by the New Left, and the social justice bicentennial promoted by community-based activists.

Fourth, Bicentennial presents the commemoration as a key moment in the remaking of urban America, with historical tourism, cultural institutions, national parks, local landmarks, and historical museums playing key roles in the revitalization of city economies.

Fifth, the book argues that the bicentennial was a key moment in the history of democracy. While bicentennial planners attempted to control the commemoration narrative, they were powerfully challenged by movements representing ethnic, indigenous, racial, and religious minorities; women; and LGBTQ people, many of whom came together in a series of counter-bicentennial protests. The largest of these, organized by the People’s Bicentennial Commission and the July Fourth Coalition, were supported by broad-based and multi-issue coalitions, belying the notion that the left collapsed and divided in the 1970s. Bicentennial follows their lead, presenting “a democratic history of a democratic bicentennial.”    

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