Book description
The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the ten years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon, but also of Harley Earl,…
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Halberstam, known for big, thick books centered around big American themes, treads the same ground as Thomas Hine’s Populuxe. Instead of concentrating on refrigerators and roadsters, Halberstam tackles the political, social, economic, and cultural change in America during the 1950s—essentially, he examined the rivets in the launching pad for the American Century. Halberstam’s great gift of teasing out stories of long-overlooked contributors is put to effortless use here as we meet Kemmons Wilson, founder of the Holiday Inn hotels, the McDonald brothers, auto designer Harley Earl, ad man Rosser Reeves and Goody Pincus, developer of the birth control pill. Other,…
From John's list on explore American consumer culture.
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NORVEL: An American Hero chronicles the remarkable life of Norvel Lee, a civil rights pioneer and Olympic athlete who challenged segregation in 1948 Virginia. Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains to working-class parents who valued education, Lee overcame Jim Crow laws and a speech impediment to achieve extraordinary success.
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