American Culture in the 1950s

American Culture in the 1950s PDF Author: Martin Halliwell
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748628908
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World's Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of 'the 1950s'. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments.

American Culture in the 1950s

American Culture in the 1950s PDF Author: Martin Halliwell
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748628908
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World's Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of 'the 1950s'. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments.

It Came From the 1950s!

It Came From the 1950s! PDF Author: Darryl Jones
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230337236
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
An eclectic and insightful collection of essays predicated on the hypothesis that popular cultural documents provide unique insights into the concerns, anxieties and desires of their times. 1950s popular culture is analysed by leading scholars and critics such as Christopher Frayling, Mark Jancovich, Kim Newman and David J. Skal.

As Seen on TV

As Seen on TV PDF Author: Karal Ann Marling
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674735285
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
From the painting-by-numbers fad to the public fascination with the First Lady's apparel to the television sensation of Elvis Presley to the sculptural refinement of the automobile, Marling explores what Americans saw and what they looked for in the 1950s with a gaze newly trained by TV.

Larger Than Life

Larger Than Life PDF Author: R. Barton Palmer
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813547660
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
A Volume in the Star Decades: American Culture/American Cinema series, edited by Adrienne L. McLean and Murray Pomerance --Book Jacket.

Lost Revolutions

Lost Revolutions PDF Author: Pete Daniel
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807848487
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Chronicles the events and societal trends that created disturbance and conflict after World War II, discussing school integration, migration into the cities, the civil rights movement, and the breakdown of traditional values.

Cold War Narratives

Cold War Narratives PDF Author: Andrea Carosso
Publisher: Peter Lang Pub Incorporated
ISBN: 9783034312707
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
<I>Cold War Narratives reveals the power that representations, understood as both cultural production and public discourse, have held in shaping the imaginaries of early Cold War America. By engaging conflicting accounts of the 1950s as either affirmations of a prosperous and confident nation (in TV shows, popular sociology, and advertising) or as critiques of a society in the throes of fear, rebelliousness, and inequality (in film, literature, and media), this study sheds new light on the ambivalent imaginaries of the American 1950s.<BR> Pitting visions of the Red Scare and of nuclear proliferation against narratives of an upbeat nation, eager to suburbanize and to adopt the new ethics of televised consensus, <I>Cold War Narratives illustrates how America's leading metaphors of conformity shaped problematic gender roles, domesticity and consumption in the 1950s. It also exposes how dissenting voices to the Cold War consensus converged around the affirmation of specific identitarian discourses, especially highlighting the agency of youth and of the rising civil rights movement, and the way in which these two entered into unprecedented dialog through new discursive formations such as beat culture and rock 'n' roll.

The Fifties

The Fifties PDF Author: Douglas T. Miller
Publisher: VNR AG
ISBN: 9780385112482
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
Surveys the social, cultural, and political history of the United States during the decade of the 1950's.

Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture

Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture PDF Author: Benjamin Leontief Alpers
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807854167
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Focusing on portrayals of Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and Stalin's Russia in U.S. films, magazine and newspaper articles, books, plays, speeches, and other texts, Benjamin Alpers traces changing American understandings of dictatorship from the la

The Feminine Mystique

The Feminine Mystique PDF Author: Betty Friedan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780140136555
Category : Feminism
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
This novel was the major inspiration for the Women's Movement and continues to be a powerful and illuminating analysis of the position of women in Western society___

The American Middle Class

The American Middle Class PDF Author: Lawrence Samuel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134624689
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
The middle class is often viewed as the heart of American society, the key to the country’s democracy and prosperity. Most Americans believe they belong to this group, and few politicians can hope to be elected without promising to serve the middle class. Yet today the American middle class is increasingly seen as under threat. In The American Middle Class: A Cultural History, Lawrence R. Samuel charts the rise and fall of this most definitive American population, from its triumphant emergence in the post-World War II years to the struggles of the present day. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, powerful economic, social, and political factors worked together in the U.S. to forge what many historians consider to be the first genuine mass middle class in history. But from the cultural convulsions of the 1960s, to the 'stagflation' of the 1970s, to Reaganomics in the 1980s, this segment of the population has been under severe stress. Drawing on a rich array of voices from the past half-century, The American Middle Class explores how the middle class, and ideas about it, have changed over time, including the distinct story of the black middle class. Placing the current crisis of the middle class in historical perspective, Samuel shows how the roots of middle-class troubles reach back to the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. The American Middle Class takes a long look at how the middle class has been winnowed away and reveals how, even in the face of this erosion, the image of the enduring middle class remains the heart and soul of the United States.