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, whether you found a home there or defined yourself in opposition to it. The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we're still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job. In The Nineties, Klosterman makes a home in 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 more. The result is a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.
