1959 by Fred Kaplan

1959 by Fred Kaplan

Acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that really changed America

While conventional accounts focus on the sixties as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, Fred Kaplan argues that it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the 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 and the Space Race put a new twist on the frontier myth.

• Vividly chronicles 1959 as a vital, overlooked year that set the world as we know it in motion, spearheading immense political, scientific, and cultural change
• Strong critical acclaim: Energetic and engaging (Washington Post); Immensely enjoyable . . . a first-rate book (New Yorker); Lively and filled with often funny anecdotes (Publishers Weekly)
• Draws fascinating parallels between the country in 1959 and today

Drawing fascinating parallels between the country in 1959 and today, Kaplan offers a smart, cogent, and deeply researched take on a vital, overlooked period in American history.

Fred Kaplan writes the War Stories column in Slate, contributes frequently to the New York Times' Arts & Leisure section, and blogs about jazz for Stereophile. A Pulitzer Prize winning former Boston Globe reporter who covered the Pentagon and post-Soviet Moscow, he has also written for the New Yorker, New York, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and other publications. He is the author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power, also available from Wiley. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Brooke Gladstone.
http: //www.1959thebook.com

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780470387818
ISBN 10	0470387815
Title	1959
Author	Fred Kaplan
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Turner Publishing Company
Year published	2009-06-12
Number of pages	336
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.