The Nineties

Book 21 of my 2023 Reading Challenge

read from 2/11 - 2/23

The Nineties

by Chuck Klosterman

Summary (via the book jacket)

It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The '90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we're still struggling to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job.

In The Nineties, Klosterman dissects the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the pre-9/11 politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan, and (almost) everything else. The result is a multidimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.

My Opinion

3 stars

This was full nostalgia for me because the 90s were my formative years (ages 11 - 20).  It was more analytical than I expected it to be at first glance but that's completely my fault for grabbing it based on title alone.  I was a little intimidated by the small, dense print but once it got past the intro, the chapters were broken up into smaller pieces so I was able to settle in and not feel as overwhelmed.

Am I the only one that didn't know the Mandela Effect was named for Nelson Mandela?

It made me laugh when the author talked about That 70's Show and what would happen if they made That 80's Show or That 90's Show since both have happened (80s was a flop, 90s is new but seems to be popular for having the right mix of old familiarity and new characters).

Quote From the Book

"In the pre-Google world, the internet had changed the way people thought about computers and communication. In the post-Google world, the internet changed the way people thought about life."