David Gibbs Speaker Event

How Big Business Created America's Culture Wars during the 1970s

David N. Gibbs, Professor of History, University of Arizona

Professor Gibbs will present on how business interests and wealthy individuals used cultural and social issues – including opposition to abortion rights, homosexuality, and secularism in public life – during the decade of the 1970s. He will place a special emphasis on corporate funding of the Christian right. The wealthy funders of these activities also sought to link social conservatism with free market economics and militarism, to produce an effective political coalition aimed at transforming US politics. He will also discuss the evolution of the culture wars, up to the present day. Professor Gibbs’ lecture is based on years of archival research and draws from his recently published book Revolt of the Rich: How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America’s Class Divide. For more information on this book and Professor Gibbs’ background, see https://dgibbs.arizona.edu/.

Host or Publisher John J Theis