Acclaimed national security columnist–and noted cultural critic–Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that really changed America Conventional historical wisdom focuses on the sixties as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, yet, as Fred Kaplan argues, it was
1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the turbulent decades that followed. Pop culture exploded in upheaval with the rise of artists like Jasper Johns,
Norman Mailer,
Allen Ginsberg, and Miles Davis. Court rulings unshackled previously banned books. Political power broadened with the onset of
Civil Rights laws and protests. The sexual and feminist revolutions took their first steps with the birth control
pill. America entered the war in Vietnam, and a new style in superpower diplomacy took hold. The invention of the microchip launched the
Computer Age, and the
Space Race put a new twist on the frontier myth. Drawing fascinating parallels between the country in
1959 and today, exactly 50 years later, Kaplan offers a smart, cogent, and deeply researched new take on a vital, overlooked period in American history.
Click for the original review.
Background Information
Norman Mailer was one of the generation of American writers who emerged from World War II. The civil rights movement, which aimed to deliver the rights assured black Americans in the post-Civil-War amendments, reached its peak of activity in the 1960's.
