In fact, the very spectacle of crowds surging into the streets and overwhelming decades of accumulated power in the hands of a highly centralized, American-backed government seemed an antidote to the despair of past years — carnage in Iraq, divisions among Palestinians and Israeli intransigence and the yawning divide between ruler and ruled on almost every question of foreign policy.
As the circus unfolded for two years in Los Angeles, it felt incomprehensible, overwhelming; two decades later, in drama and in documentary, sustained immersion seems the only way to dig out every last nuance of a story of decades-long racial animosity and mistrust, and of the perils of American celebrity and wealth.
Models of global warming have certainly become more sophisticated over the last 40 years, and supporting evidence that was fragmentary in 1970 became overwhelming in succeeding decades.
In recent decades, overwhelming evidence has indicated that metabolic disorders, including obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and nonalcohol fatty liver disease, are the leading cause of disability and death.
With his declaration on Friday that he would waive the most contentious provisions of a federal education law, President Obama effectively rerouted the nation's education history after a turbulent decade of overwhelming federal influence.
A beautiful abstraction by Ross Bleckner, of wandering blurred lights aglow in a wax-infused black ground, elegizes the decade's overwhelming catastrophe of AIDS, which decimated the city's cultural circles.
Still, overwhelming is overwhelming.
But over the decades, the overwhelming majority accepted their powerlessness vis-à-vis the state as a fact of life; those defying the oppression and showing any independence were regarded suspicious troublemakers and a threat to everyday life.
Yet in spite of overwhelming public support and a decade of successes, the Hunting Act is in danger of being overturned.
But to watch him on Thursday, to see him summon his best stuff after an overwhelming workload unmatched in a decade, was to witness pitching greatness.
