This is both a history book and a book on public opinion. George Gallup, who pioneered survey sampling methods and whose name in fact became synonymous with public opinion polls, conducted his first survey in 1936. The main part of this book starts there as well. Dedicating a chapter to each decade from the 1930s to the present, Seltzer discusses historical events of the period and what the U.S. public thought of those events according to Gallup polls and other public opinion surveys. Each chapter is divided into the following categories: world events; U.S. politics; race; sex and gender; the economy; science, technology and the environment; and popular trends. Within each chapter, approximately 40 survey questions were chosen for more extended analysis: breaking down the results by race, age, gender, education, region, and political party.