"My first encounter with Bruce Schulman was, of course, through his book on The Seventies. 

This would have been in 2003, just a couple of years after September 11th in fact, and I think I first saw the book and was compelled to gaze at its cover on account of its title. I may have bought it at one of those mass market bookstores then in abundance at the time, possibly at a Barnes And No- ble. I bought the book and read it in its entirety in one night, an- nounced to the paper for which I was then writing, Organica (and of which there exist no digitally archived copies whatsoev- er, for all sorts of complicated reasons I won't get into here) that I was determined to find the man behind the box in person and do a story on him. 

This wasn't difficult to do since I was living about a mile away from where he was teaching then at Boston University. I found him to be an unusually warm and open man, utterly without pretensions, and beautifully, more than once during the interview a student and then a student's parent stopped by to say him and tell him how inspirational his class was. I hope that his book continues to be the major text on the sub- ject of that era for the foreseeable future. 

People often ask me why I am so interested in 1970s. 

Part of it is my love for the underrepresented, the orphaned, and the, for lack of a better word, "unloved." 

I am always drawn to that which society considers undramatic, which of course relates to my love of the quotidian. Now we are discussing perception here not facts.

 Often something initially thought of as completely irrelevant or a waste of time emerges in hindsight to be the most important thing in the world: one era's costume/period drama is another era's kitchen sink drama". It continues to be the case that the 70s are sandwiched, like a middle child, hell like out entire "generation X" be- tween these other incredibly dramatic and huge in demo- graphic eras. I believe "the 60s" continues to be more popular an unreflective catch phrase far more than "the 70s". 

I further believe that when you get past the 60s branding as "cool" or "revolutionary" you realize that not everything im- portant happened within its confines. People often say that not everything can be explained by a gen- eration or an era. 

Of course that is true, but neither is it the case that generations or eras are unimportant. Since I look at the present with the eyes of Chuck Klosterman in his, in my view, master- piece of non-fiction, But What If We're Wrong? Thinking about the present as if it were the past, I see contempo- rary things with some critical distance and this makes me keenly at- tuned to how much of the contemporary is in a highly specific style unique to our age, and not ultimately better nor worse than earlier styles, but still a style all the same. 

Style is that which you can't ignore and never shuts up. 

Bruce Schulman is one of those innovative historians who regards popular culture and the arts as central to history, as im- portant if not more decisive than the actions of politicians. gras roots political campaigns or what generally gets counted in the history books. 

Speaking to him was a delight from beginning to end and I hope you share in that enjoyment as you listen. “ 

Links to Bruce’s Published Works: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Bruce-Schulman/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ABruce+Schulman 

For Bruce's extended bio , visit our show Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/journeyofanaesthetepodcast