In 1976, journalist Tom Wolfe (1931–) coined the term "The Me Decade" to describe the 1970s. It was not a compliment. In the eyes of many, Americans in the 1970s retreated from the political and social changes they had pursued in the 1960s and were happy to focus only on themselves. The reasons why they did this were many. First, the economy slowed dramatically in the early 1970s, and people became more concerned with protecting their families from financial trouble than with changing the world. The youthful baby boomers who had populated the activist movements of the 1960s were settling down. As they did, they looked inward instead of outward. Fewer people protested in the streets, and many more visited therapists or sought to improve their spiritual lives. This quest for individual perfection led to a higher divorce rate, as people found it more acceptable to...