American Culture in the 1950s

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Columbia University Press, Sep 1, 2007 - History - 313 pages

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.

Key Features:

Focused case studies featuring key texts, genres, writers, artists and cultural trends

Chronology of 1950s American Culture

Bibliographies for each chapter

More than twenty illustrations

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About the author (2007)

Martin Halliwell is Professor of American Studies at the University of Leicester. His most recent authored books include Transatlantic Modernism: Moral Dilemmas in Modernist Fiction (EUP, 2005), The Constant Dialogue: Reinhold Niebuhr and American Intellectual Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005) and Images of Idiocy: The Idiot Figure in Modern Fiction and Film (Ashgate, 2004).

Bibliographic information