Alongside cultural dislocation and political alienation, the country confronted a series of distressing economic setbacks in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1973, inflation began to climb at a pace unprecedented in the post-World War II decades, and economic growth slowed. An energy crisis, aggravated by American foreign policy in the Middle East, produced fuel shortages. Foreign competition in manufacturing brought less expensive, and often more reliable, goods into the U.S. market from nations such as Japan and West Germany. Both developments helped set off a round of plant closings and deindustrialization.
