| Product Summary | | Format: Hardcover | | ISBN: 9780470387818 | | Publisher: WILTR | | Publish Date: 6/15/2009 | | Buy.com Sku: 210930067 | | Item#: | | Dimensions (in Inches) 9.5H x 6.25L x 1.25T |
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| | | An acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic draws fascinating parallels between the country in 1959 and today, exactly 50 years later, and offers a smart, cogent, and deeply researched new take on a vital, overlooked period in American history.
Annotation:
1848? A year of revolution? Agreed. 1968, a year of change? Certainly. 1989? No doubt the fall of the Soviet Union made history. But 1959? Journalist Fred Kaplan provides a new historical turning point, arguing that the Sixties actually began in the last year of the much maligned Fifties in his book 1959: THE YEAR THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING. The year marked the breakthroughs of major innovative artists like Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg, civil rights began to gain momentum, "the pill" came into use for contraception, the war in Vietnam and the Space Race heated up, and the microchip jumpstarted the age of computers. Unlike many multidisciplinary histories that focus on decades, this book frees us from that mindset and reminds us that monumental shifts can start as tremors--in any year.
| Praise| "Fred Kaplan's energetic and engaging new book makes a convincing case for [1959's] importance. Because it set the scene for the explosions of the 1960s, 1959 deserves special attention as a turning point in American history....Anyone old enough to remember the '50s will be astonished to discover how many revolutionary seeds were sewn in the final year of that decade. Others who read 1959 will get a compelling and concise lesson in American social, cultural and political history." - Charles Kaiser 09/06/2009 |
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