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Hardcover(First Edition)
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Overview
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.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780470387818 |
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Publisher: | TURNER PUB CO |
Publication date: | 06/01/2009 |
Edition description: | First Edition |
Pages: | 344 |
Product dimensions: | 6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
![About The Author](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
Read an Excerpt
Table of Contents
Timeline xi
1 Breaking the Chains 1
2 A Visitor from the East 8
3 The Philosopher of Hip 15
4 Generations Howling 26
5 The Cosmonaut of Inner Space 39
6 The End of Obscenity 45
7 Sickniks 55
8 Thinking about the Unthinkable 63
9 The Race for Space 72
10 Toppling the Tyranny of Numbers 76
11 The Assault on the Chord 84
12 Revolutionary Euphoria 94
13 Breaking the Logjam, Hitting the Wall 105
14 The Frontier's Dark Side 116
15 The New Language of Diplomacy 125
16 Sparking the Powder Keg 133
17 Civilizations in the Stars 149
18 A Great Upward Swoop of Movement 157
19 Blurring Art and Life 169
20 Seeing the Invisible 181
21 The Off-Hollywood Movie 188
22 The Shape of Jazz to Come 198
23 Dancing in the Streets 212
24 Andromeda Freed from Her Chains 221
25 New Frontiers 233
Acknowledgments 245
Notes 249
Credits 309
Index 311
What People are Saying About This
"An engrossing story about not just where the ’60s came from but the birth of the future. Kaplan does a masterful job of weaving together the strands — in politics, society, culture, and science — that have brought us to the postmodern age."
–Jonathan Alter, author of The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
"It turns out there’s only one degree of separation between Miles Davis, the brilliant jazz innovator, and Herman Kahn, the Strangelovian nuclear-war theorist—and his name is Fred Kaplan. No one else could throw this fabulous cocktail party of a popular history, teeming with defiant hipsters, visionary inventors, artistic rulebreakers, and troublemakers of all kinds."
–Hendrik Hertzberg, Senior Editor, the New Yorker
"1959 is a riveting account of the year our modern age began. Everything did change, and you’ll be amazed by how much was going on, and how much it has affected the way you live your life now."
–Kevin Baker, author of Strivers Row, Dreamland, and Paradise Alley
"Take a ride on the New Frontier with Fred Kaplan, your insightful (and hip) guide to the space race, thermonuclear war, the civil rights movement, the ‘sick comics,’ the Beats, and the beginnings of the Vietnam War, all to a soundtrack by Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Miles, and Motown."
–Donald Fagen, cofounder, Steely Dan