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The Fifties
"In retrospect," writes David Halberstam, "the pace of the fifties seemed slower, almost languid. Social ferment, however, was beginning just beneath this placid surface." He shows how the United States began to emerge from the long shadow of FDR's 12-year presidency, with the military-industrial complex and the Beat movement simultaneously growing strong. Television brought not only situation comedies but controversial congressional hearings into millions of living rooms. While Alfred Kinsey was studying people's sex lives, Gregory Pincus and other researchers began work on a pill that would forever alter the course of American reproductive practices. Halberstam takes on these social upheavals and more, charting a course that is as easy to navigate as it is wide-ranging.
654 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 1979
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About the author
David Halberstam
97 books857 followersDavid Halberstam was an American journalist and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, and later, sports journalism. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1964.
Halberstam graduated from Harvard University with a degree in journalism in 1955 and started his career writing for the Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, writing for The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, he covered the beginnings of the American Civil Rights Movement.
In the mid 1960s, Halberstam covered the Vietnam War for The New York Times. While there, he gathered material for his book The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. In 1963, he received a George Polk Award for his reporting at the New York Times. At the age of 30, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the war. He is interviewed in the 1968 documentary film on the Vietnam War entitled In the Year of the Pig.
Halberstam's most well known work is The Best and the Brightest. Halberstam focused on the paradox that those who shaped the U.S. war effort in Vietnam were some of the most intelligent, well-connected and self-confident men in America—"the best and the brightest"—and yet those same individuals were responsible for the failure of the United States Vientnam policy.
After publication of The Best and the Brightest in 1972, Halberstam plunged right into another book and in 1979 published The Powers That Be. The book provided profiles of men like William Paley of CBS, Henry Luce of Time magazine, Phil Graham of The Washington Post—and many others.
Later in his career, Halberstam turned to the subjects of sports, publishing The Breaks of the Game, an inside look at the Bill Walton and the 1978 Portland Trailblazers basketball team; an ambitious book on Michael Jordan in 1999 called Playing for Keeps; and on the pennant race battle between the Yankees and Red Sox called Summer of '49.
Halberstam published two books in the 1960s, three books in the 1970s, four books in the 1980s, and six books in the 1990s. He published four books in the 2000s and was on a pace to publish six or more books in that decade before his death.
David Halberstam was killed in a car crash on April 23, 2007 in Menlo Park, California.
Halberstam graduated from Harvard University with a degree in journalism in 1955 and started his career writing for the Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, writing for The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, he covered the beginnings of the American Civil Rights Movement.
In the mid 1960s, Halberstam covered the Vietnam War for The New York Times. While there, he gathered material for his book The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. In 1963, he received a George Polk Award for his reporting at the New York Times. At the age of 30, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the war. He is interviewed in the 1968 documentary film on the Vietnam War entitled In the Year of the Pig.
Halberstam's most well known work is The Best and the Brightest. Halberstam focused on the paradox that those who shaped the U.S. war effort in Vietnam were some of the most intelligent, well-connected and self-confident men in America—"the best and the brightest"—and yet those same individuals were responsible for the failure of the United States Vientnam policy.
After publication of The Best and the Brightest in 1972, Halberstam plunged right into another book and in 1979 published The Powers That Be. The book provided profiles of men like William Paley of CBS, Henry Luce of Time magazine, Phil Graham of The Washington Post—and many others.
Later in his career, Halberstam turned to the subjects of sports, publishing The Breaks of the Game, an inside look at the Bill Walton and the 1978 Portland Trailblazers basketball team; an ambitious book on Michael Jordan in 1999 called Playing for Keeps; and on the pennant race battle between the Yankees and Red Sox called Summer of '49.
Halberstam published two books in the 1960s, three books in the 1970s, four books in the 1980s, and six books in the 1990s. He published four books in the 2000s and was on a pace to publish six or more books in that decade before his death.
David Halberstam was killed in a car crash on April 23, 2007 in Menlo Park, California.
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November 29, 2025
“For a while, the traditional system of authority held. The men…who presided in politics, business, and the media had generally been born in the previous century. The advent of so strong a society, in which the nation’s wealth was shared by so many, represented a prosperity beyond their wildest dreams. During the course of the fifties, as younger people and segments of society who did not believe they had a fair share became empowered, pressure inevitably began to build against the entrenched political and social hierarchy. But one did not lightly challenge a system that seemed, on the whole, to be working so well. Some social critics, irritated by the generally quiescent attitude and the boundless appetite for consumerism, described a ‘silent’ generation. Others were made uneasy by the degree of conformity around them, as if the middle-class living standard had been delivered in an obvious tradeoff for blind acceptance of the status quo. Nonetheless, the era was a much more interesting one than it appeared on the surface. Exciting new technologies were being developed that would soon enable a vast and surprisingly broad degree of dissidence, and many people were already beginning to question the purpose of their lives and whether that purpose had indeed become, almost involuntarily, too much about material things…”
- David Halberstam, The Fifties
Every decade of America’s twentieth century has its own distinct character, one that forms almost reflexively in the mind’s eye. There is the “Roaring Twenties,” with its flappers, gangsters, and speakeasies; its jazz, art deco architecture, and haunted World War I vets quaffing absinthe and trying to forget. There is the Dust Bowl Thirties, with Okies and foreclosed farms and the Joad family forever on the road to California. Skip forward a bit and you arrive at the Sixties, with its peace, free love, and antiauthoritarianism, all set against the background of a shabby war in Southeast Asia. Keep going, and you arrive at the cocaine-and-insider trading Eighties, where greed was good and the hairstyles were not.
While obviously a gross generalization, these identities provide a helpful shorthand for discrete periods of time.
When we think of the Fifties, we are most likely imagining a time of cultural, economic, and political traditionalism, a pristine black-and-white world of race-and-sex ordered roles, where everyone knew their place: dad in a suit, at work; mom in an apron, at home; and two kids, spirited but generally well-behaved, doing what they were told.
As David Halberstam demonstrates in The Fifties, there is a lot of truth to this stereotype. The old guard – represented by nation-daddy Dwight Eisenhower – had been born in the nineteenth century, and they sought to protect a worldview that did not quite fit with a rapidly modernizing country. But this defense of conformism – along with democratizing technologies, the advocation of civil rights, and a slew of young rebels – proved its undoing. By the end of the decade, everyone had a pretty good idea that the next ten years were going to be wild.
***
The Fifties is a sprawling, ambitious, utterly absorbing epic. At over seven-hundred pages of text, it is massive, and tries to cover a bit of everything. In that way, it’s a bit like me at an Old Country Buffet. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be “fun.” Don’t get me wrong, it covers some serious stuff. But The Fifties is mostly a hoot. It is an enjoyable, rollicking ride that skips furiously from one thing to the next, never quite letting you catch your breath.
***
While The Fifties is many things, it is not is well-structured.
Halberstam’s approach is artistic rather than methodical. It begins and ends with firm landmarks: the death of Franklin Roosevelt at the start, and the John Kennedy-Richard Nixon presidential debate at the finish. The in-between, though, is almost stream of conscience, moving forward and backward along the timeline. Halberstam will pick up a topic, follow it for a while, and then drop it. Sometimes he will circle back. Sometimes he will not.
Unlike many similar books, Halberstam does not open with a thesis statement or attempt to tease out a singular conclusion. Even the table of contents refuses to provide a roadmap, with the chapters simple numbered, rather than given names or dates.
Ultimately, The Fifties is a pastiche, an ad hoc memory book. It’s like your favorite uncle tried to show you a slide show, but dropped the projector. Instead of rearranging all the slides, he puts them back in random order, takes a big gulp of wine, and starts talking.
***
The scope of The Fifties is incredible. It dives into domestic politics and foreign policy; the Korean War and McCarthyism; business and the economy; television and literature; advertising and consumerism; civil rights and the birth control pill. The quality of the writing is astounding, as is Halberstam’s ability to miniaturize a book-length topic into a worthwhile handful of pages. For instance, late in his foreshortened career, Halberstam wrote a huge book on the Korean War called The Coldest Winter. Here, he skillfully and insightfully summarizes the conflict in a fraction of a fraction of the space.
Halberstam’s style is to present each subject as a story arc, usually focused on an individual. A sampling of these self-contained narratives includes: Ray Kroc and the founding of McDonald’s; Elvis Presley and his gyrating hips; Lucile Ball and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; the novels of Mickey Spillane, Jack Keroacu, and Grace Metalious; Charles Kemmons Wilson and the creation of the Holiday Inn line of hotels; Marlon Brando and James Dean; car designer Harley Earl and the rise of General Motors; and adman Rosser Reeves, who helped turn politics into theater.
Much of the content is just sheer delight, especially for someone like me, who grew up adoring both the fast-food of McDonald’s and the comforts of a Holiday Inn (at one time I was certain that heaven meant eating Chicken McNuggets outside a pool-facing room at a Holidome). But Halberstam covers weightier issues as well. Indeed, some of the strongest sequences in the entire book are the ones that cover the murder of Emmett Till, the sitting stand of Rosa Parks, and President Eisenhower’s decision to send troops into Little Rock after Orville Faubus – marvelously described – defied the Supreme Court’s desegregation order.
***
There is so much to say, so many things to point out. Alas, I’m already past a reasonable word count. Suffice to say, nothing stands out more to me than prosperity of the 1950s. Obviously – and I cannot stress this enough – wealth was not distributed evenly. This is especially true regarding black Americans, many of whom lived in segregated states, and women of all races, who were consigned to a narrow range of occupations.
That caveat aside, this was the golden era of the middle class, the sweet spot of capitalism. Corporate executives made more than their workers, but tough income tax brackets assured they still lived in the same city as their employees, rather than on different planets. The G.I. Bill sent millions to college. William Levitt – who gets a lengthy description – made homes affordable for the masses. Employers took care of their workers, and a man might spend his whole career in one place, climbing the ladder one rung at a time.
More than that, businessmen simply believed different things. When Halberstam surveys the entrepreneurs of this period, you hear them talk about concepts like quality products and sustained profitability. Today, it’s all about short-term profits to placate shareholders, even – or especially – if it means firing workers, slashing salaries, destroying brands, or offshoring the whole damn thing.
Our present is paradoxically the wealthiest and the most unequal span in all history. We are getting to a point where the richest people in the world have so much money that they only thing they can plausibly buy with it is a country. In this one area at least, the Fifties seem pretty great, though by the end of it, there were dire signs of things to come.
***
Before opening this, I never gave a great deal of thought to the Fifties. It did not interest me in the same way as the Thirties, Forties, or Sixties, which are crammed with overtly dramatic world-historical events. It also appeared hopelessly square, a thing that belonged to my parents. Maybe it’s the movie Pleasantville, but it existed for me as a wasteland of poodle skirts, pressboard suburbs, and tasteless tastemakers. Nothing about it compelled me, and if I had a time machine, I’d be heading to the Nineties to enjoy Pulp Fiction, Green Day, and an AOL dial-up connection.
Without ever overtly trying, Halberstam lays out a case for the Fifties. If nothing else, he reminds us that history is always interesting if you are willing to go looking.
- David Halberstam, The Fifties
Every decade of America’s twentieth century has its own distinct character, one that forms almost reflexively in the mind’s eye. There is the “Roaring Twenties,” with its flappers, gangsters, and speakeasies; its jazz, art deco architecture, and haunted World War I vets quaffing absinthe and trying to forget. There is the Dust Bowl Thirties, with Okies and foreclosed farms and the Joad family forever on the road to California. Skip forward a bit and you arrive at the Sixties, with its peace, free love, and antiauthoritarianism, all set against the background of a shabby war in Southeast Asia. Keep going, and you arrive at the cocaine-and-insider trading Eighties, where greed was good and the hairstyles were not.
While obviously a gross generalization, these identities provide a helpful shorthand for discrete periods of time.
When we think of the Fifties, we are most likely imagining a time of cultural, economic, and political traditionalism, a pristine black-and-white world of race-and-sex ordered roles, where everyone knew their place: dad in a suit, at work; mom in an apron, at home; and two kids, spirited but generally well-behaved, doing what they were told.
As David Halberstam demonstrates in The Fifties, there is a lot of truth to this stereotype. The old guard – represented by nation-daddy Dwight Eisenhower – had been born in the nineteenth century, and they sought to protect a worldview that did not quite fit with a rapidly modernizing country. But this defense of conformism – along with democratizing technologies, the advocation of civil rights, and a slew of young rebels – proved its undoing. By the end of the decade, everyone had a pretty good idea that the next ten years were going to be wild.
***
The Fifties is a sprawling, ambitious, utterly absorbing epic. At over seven-hundred pages of text, it is massive, and tries to cover a bit of everything. In that way, it’s a bit like me at an Old Country Buffet. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be “fun.” Don’t get me wrong, it covers some serious stuff. But The Fifties is mostly a hoot. It is an enjoyable, rollicking ride that skips furiously from one thing to the next, never quite letting you catch your breath.
***
While The Fifties is many things, it is not is well-structured.
Halberstam’s approach is artistic rather than methodical. It begins and ends with firm landmarks: the death of Franklin Roosevelt at the start, and the John Kennedy-Richard Nixon presidential debate at the finish. The in-between, though, is almost stream of conscience, moving forward and backward along the timeline. Halberstam will pick up a topic, follow it for a while, and then drop it. Sometimes he will circle back. Sometimes he will not.
Unlike many similar books, Halberstam does not open with a thesis statement or attempt to tease out a singular conclusion. Even the table of contents refuses to provide a roadmap, with the chapters simple numbered, rather than given names or dates.
Ultimately, The Fifties is a pastiche, an ad hoc memory book. It’s like your favorite uncle tried to show you a slide show, but dropped the projector. Instead of rearranging all the slides, he puts them back in random order, takes a big gulp of wine, and starts talking.
***
The scope of The Fifties is incredible. It dives into domestic politics and foreign policy; the Korean War and McCarthyism; business and the economy; television and literature; advertising and consumerism; civil rights and the birth control pill. The quality of the writing is astounding, as is Halberstam’s ability to miniaturize a book-length topic into a worthwhile handful of pages. For instance, late in his foreshortened career, Halberstam wrote a huge book on the Korean War called The Coldest Winter. Here, he skillfully and insightfully summarizes the conflict in a fraction of a fraction of the space.
Halberstam’s style is to present each subject as a story arc, usually focused on an individual. A sampling of these self-contained narratives includes: Ray Kroc and the founding of McDonald’s; Elvis Presley and his gyrating hips; Lucile Ball and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; the novels of Mickey Spillane, Jack Keroacu, and Grace Metalious; Charles Kemmons Wilson and the creation of the Holiday Inn line of hotels; Marlon Brando and James Dean; car designer Harley Earl and the rise of General Motors; and adman Rosser Reeves, who helped turn politics into theater.
Much of the content is just sheer delight, especially for someone like me, who grew up adoring both the fast-food of McDonald’s and the comforts of a Holiday Inn (at one time I was certain that heaven meant eating Chicken McNuggets outside a pool-facing room at a Holidome). But Halberstam covers weightier issues as well. Indeed, some of the strongest sequences in the entire book are the ones that cover the murder of Emmett Till, the sitting stand of Rosa Parks, and President Eisenhower’s decision to send troops into Little Rock after Orville Faubus – marvelously described – defied the Supreme Court’s desegregation order.
***
There is so much to say, so many things to point out. Alas, I’m already past a reasonable word count. Suffice to say, nothing stands out more to me than prosperity of the 1950s. Obviously – and I cannot stress this enough – wealth was not distributed evenly. This is especially true regarding black Americans, many of whom lived in segregated states, and women of all races, who were consigned to a narrow range of occupations.
That caveat aside, this was the golden era of the middle class, the sweet spot of capitalism. Corporate executives made more than their workers, but tough income tax brackets assured they still lived in the same city as their employees, rather than on different planets. The G.I. Bill sent millions to college. William Levitt – who gets a lengthy description – made homes affordable for the masses. Employers took care of their workers, and a man might spend his whole career in one place, climbing the ladder one rung at a time.
More than that, businessmen simply believed different things. When Halberstam surveys the entrepreneurs of this period, you hear them talk about concepts like quality products and sustained profitability. Today, it’s all about short-term profits to placate shareholders, even – or especially – if it means firing workers, slashing salaries, destroying brands, or offshoring the whole damn thing.
Our present is paradoxically the wealthiest and the most unequal span in all history. We are getting to a point where the richest people in the world have so much money that they only thing they can plausibly buy with it is a country. In this one area at least, the Fifties seem pretty great, though by the end of it, there were dire signs of things to come.
***
Before opening this, I never gave a great deal of thought to the Fifties. It did not interest me in the same way as the Thirties, Forties, or Sixties, which are crammed with overtly dramatic world-historical events. It also appeared hopelessly square, a thing that belonged to my parents. Maybe it’s the movie Pleasantville, but it existed for me as a wasteland of poodle skirts, pressboard suburbs, and tasteless tastemakers. Nothing about it compelled me, and if I had a time machine, I’d be heading to the Nineties to enjoy Pulp Fiction, Green Day, and an AOL dial-up connection.
Without ever overtly trying, Halberstam lays out a case for the Fifties. If nothing else, he reminds us that history is always interesting if you are willing to go looking.
October 16, 2024
You know the scene. Marty McFly steps into down town Hill Valley, California circa 1955. He heads to a malt shop and orders a Pepsi, free, and no one from the ‘50s understands his slang. The 1950s: a decade of malt shops, cheeseburgers, drive in movies, hula hoops, early skateboards, and Davy Crockett caps. My parents enjoyed a for the most part warm childhood during the decade, and my father especially waxes nostalgic about his upbringing. Rogers Park could be Flatbush, and I have read or heard countless accounts about both neighborhoods during this mid century wholesomeness. Kids forming their own baseball teams, baseball games costing $.50 admission, and double feature movies not much more. Amusement parks located right in city neighborhoods and parents believing it safe for kids to ride city buses by themselves. Between my dad’s stories, reading Doris Kearns Godwin’s memoir of growing up in the decade at least a dozen times, and listing Back to the Future as one of my favorite movies, I have noted on multiple occasions that I believe I was born a generation too late. For baby boomers, the 1950s post war America must have been a wonderful time to grow up. For those born fifteen years earlier like American sage David Halberstam, the 1950s were a contrast of idyllic life with a powder keg ready to explode. As he graduated from high school in 1951 and college in 1955, Halberstam witnessed the 1950s from a slightly different lens than that of those who were children during the decade. As a young man experiencing the nation change before his eyes, Halberstam was uniquely positioned to write a testimony about the 1950s and how the decade lead to the turbulence that was the 1960s. Halberstam was one if not the best historian the United States produced during a generation. What follows is his ode to this watershed, transitional decade.
The 1950s, David Halberstam states as his thesis, were mean times ready to happen. The Democrats had been in power for twenty years, and Americans were ready for a change in leadership. Young men returning from fighting in World War II hoped to return to a peaceful America devoid of conflict, desiring to start their life in a world that was safe for democracy. The years of FDR and then Truman saw the turbulence of the Depression and war, and Republicans urged war hero Dwight Eisenhower to join their party and run for President in 1952. Eisenhower, known as Ike, did not necessarily want the job. He was older at he time, in his sixties, and would be the last president born in the 19th century. Although Ike served admirably in World War II, as an elder statesman he was ready to settle down; however, he saw it as his duty to his country to run for President, and along with Senator Richard Nixon, defeated Adlai Stevenson, who Americans saw as too intellectual. The peacetime age of Ike began in 1952, but, according to Halberstam, Americans only remember the decade as peaceful due to the idyllic images transmitted on an upcoming medium: television. By the mid 1950s, many Americans owned a television, and during the first decade that television overtook radio as the favored broadcast medium, images were sanitized. An older president without glasses, nuclear families on sitcoms, early commercials for American cars. Americans of a certain age remember the Nelsons, Leave it to Beaver, and Father Knows Best, families supposed to resemble the new normal albeit white American family. America in the age of Ike was not all cheery like the Cleaver family; turmoil brewed below the surface, and only those astute enough to recognize it saw America on a crash course toward a generational gap ready to explode a decade later.
While Ike lead the United States during peacetime and also established the nation’s highway system that allowed for more Americans to become mobile than ever before, he also lead the country during the early days of the Cold War. First Korea and then the decision whether or not to assist France in a country then known as Indochina. In the first part of the decade, Senator Joseph McCarthy sought to weed out any American known to have ties to communism. The red scare was real, each country a domino that could fall to the Soviets or China. Following the fall of McCarthy, Secretary of State Allen Dulles lead many military coups against countries that may or may not have had communist leanings. First in Irán, then in Guatemala, and later in the decade in Cuba, Americans supported uprisings that lead to American installed governments in these second and third world countries. These countries would be at the time safe from communism. Meanwhile the race with the Soviets toward nuclear superiority continued. Having successfully demonstrated the power of the atomic bomb in World War II, the government pressured scientists to develop a hydrogen bomb immensely more powerful. Lead physicist Robert Oppenheimer balked at the idea and eventually lost government clearance to continue with his life’s work. Oppenheimer was a poet who happened to be a gifted physicist. He lost clout in favor of Edward Teller who developed the hydrogen bomb, which lead to the world’s citizens fearing s nuclear war for decades to come. The Cold War had started. America was not as peaceful as the images transmitted over television waves.
Veterans returned to start families. Many took advantage of the GI Bill and attended college. The new middle class was more upwardly mobile than ever before. Families who before lived in the city moved to homes in the newly established suburbs, the first being Levittown in Long Island, New York. For a menial fee, veterans paid for a home and could live with their family in comfort. Engineers developed modern appliances made to make life easier. Families could watch television, shop at early malls such as Green Acres, and eat at McDonald’s, which first opened in 1955. Families with a little more means took vacations in the family car, usually built by General Motors in Detroit, Michigan, and could stay at a Holiday Inn hotel where kids stayed for free. At home, families watched television, went to the drive in movie, and enjoyed luxuries for minimal prices before the days of inflation. The men worked and women ran the home. Children had the choice of many friends due to the baby boom, and life, as Halberstam stated earlier, was idyllic. Boys had paper routes and joined Boy Scouts. Girls learned to sew and joined Girl Scouts. Moms helped at the PTA at school. The most trouble one could get into was being late for supper following a baseball game that ran long. Life in America suburbia appeared to be hunky dory for the generation bettering themselves following War World II.
Just as politically the United States set itself up for the next decade of international conflict, on the domestic front things were not always as cheerful as “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet.” African Americans who fought in World War II returned home and started to demand equal rights. Jackie Robinson successfully integrated Major League Baseball in 1947, and Martin Luther King Jr saw Robinson as an early crusader for civil rights. In 1954 the Brown vs Board case made it to the Supreme Court, and the justices ruled that separate was not equal. The movement sprang up overnight and gained traction when Rosa Parks would not give up her seat on the bus. In this new age of television, images of southern white supremacy broadcast on sets around the nation. Americans in all sections of the country saw the plight of African Americans with their own eyes. Southern blacks continued the great migration north and west in search of better life in northern cities. Halberstam cites basketball star Bill Russell, whose family migrated to California, but this was the reality for thousands of African Americans until the passage of the Civil Rights Act a decade later. Halberstam ends his section on Civil Rights by discussing the formation of the race beat in northern newspapers, of which he took part as a young man. He cited the integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in 1958 and how television and newspapers used their platforms to publicize the movement, which lead to the turbulent events of the 1960s. Starting with Robinson and then Parks, the movement gained steam during the peaceful 1950s, which were not as peaceful as they seemed.
Women and teenagers were not always happy either. Women who worked in factories during World War II returned home to be housewives, often in suburbia. Many were not happy with their lot in life but saw this reality as their current ststion. Living the reality of Mrs Cleaver, women at times pined for a life more fulfilling than supporting their husbands. Betty Friedan wanted to write and after years of research published The Feminine Mystique in 1963. After taking a backseat to civil rights during the 1960s, women would demand equal rights to men during the heated women’s rights movement of the 1970s. Teenagers also had new heroes thanks to television, movies, and music. Willie Mays made baseball look graceful as did Jim Brown on the football field. Marlon Brandon and James Dean were teenage rebel heartthrobs on the silver screen, and Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe experienced one of America’s more publicized celebrity romances. Sex began to sell both in pop culture and with the advent of the birth control pill. No one person personified the generation gap more so than Elvis Presley, whose sultry looks and new rock and roll sounds captivated a nation. Big band and swing were out. Rock and roll was in, and teenagers began to clamor for these new sounds, and more and more musical stars and bands produced the soundtrack of an era. The segue to the 1960s had begun.
Halberstam’s denouement leads up to the Kennedy-Nixon debates during the 1960 presidential race. Ike never wanted to be president. The war hero desired to be known as a man of peace and hoped to end his term with a nuclear test ban treaty, ending the arms race and stabilizing the Cold War. This never happened, and as Ike left office, he left with the pentagon still planning the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion, leaving this debacle in the hands of the next president. Ike’s generation born in the 1890s was out of touch with the new American. Both Kennedy and Nixon served during World War II and were young enough to be Ike’s sons. Ike saw the debates on television and believed that the moral fiber of society deteriorated overnight. Between Castro ninety miles away in Cuba and the civil rights movement lead by Martin Luther King gaining steam on a daily basis, the next president would have his hands full as he lead the United States into the 1960s, an age marked by the Cold War, space race, arms race, civil rights, and a generational gap marked by music and television that would explode by the decade’s end. The idyllic 1950s of the Cleavers, Father Knows Best and to a certain extent I Love Lucy transitioned to that of the Partridge Family, the Patty Duke Show, and later the Brady Bunch. The peaceful 1950s exploded into the turbulent 1960s.
When I note that I believe I was born a generation too late, I pine for the wholesomeness of the 1950s, when all images appeared peaceful. Kids could walk to a drug store and buy a fountain drink, and the most important debate was whether the Yankees or Dodgers would win the World Series in a given year. That place just over the Brooklyn Bridge or Rogers Park or Hill Valley, California are the images I think of when I imagine the 1950s. It was a decade where a kid could play stickball in the streets and experience countless entertainment for mere cents before the age of inflation. It was the decade where things really were as American as “baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet,” a commercial that my dad still sings on key. David Halberstam came into adulthood during the 1950s. He was a good fifteen years older than my parents and saw the world from a more mature lens. As a college graduate, he experienced the race beat first hand, and these experiences shaped who both he and the decade would become for him. Halberstam was one of the best that we had before an auto accident took him before his time. Some journalists say he was G-D. His work still ranks among the best and brightest. This ode to the 1950s has lead me to re-examine if I really would have loved to be a kid during that decade. While the times appeared rosy and wholesome, the 1960s had to have emerged from somewhere, and that somewhere was the 1950s, as described by Halberstam, as a time thrilling to be alive as younger generations waited for the world to explode.
*5 star read*
The 1950s, David Halberstam states as his thesis, were mean times ready to happen. The Democrats had been in power for twenty years, and Americans were ready for a change in leadership. Young men returning from fighting in World War II hoped to return to a peaceful America devoid of conflict, desiring to start their life in a world that was safe for democracy. The years of FDR and then Truman saw the turbulence of the Depression and war, and Republicans urged war hero Dwight Eisenhower to join their party and run for President in 1952. Eisenhower, known as Ike, did not necessarily want the job. He was older at he time, in his sixties, and would be the last president born in the 19th century. Although Ike served admirably in World War II, as an elder statesman he was ready to settle down; however, he saw it as his duty to his country to run for President, and along with Senator Richard Nixon, defeated Adlai Stevenson, who Americans saw as too intellectual. The peacetime age of Ike began in 1952, but, according to Halberstam, Americans only remember the decade as peaceful due to the idyllic images transmitted on an upcoming medium: television. By the mid 1950s, many Americans owned a television, and during the first decade that television overtook radio as the favored broadcast medium, images were sanitized. An older president without glasses, nuclear families on sitcoms, early commercials for American cars. Americans of a certain age remember the Nelsons, Leave it to Beaver, and Father Knows Best, families supposed to resemble the new normal albeit white American family. America in the age of Ike was not all cheery like the Cleaver family; turmoil brewed below the surface, and only those astute enough to recognize it saw America on a crash course toward a generational gap ready to explode a decade later.
While Ike lead the United States during peacetime and also established the nation’s highway system that allowed for more Americans to become mobile than ever before, he also lead the country during the early days of the Cold War. First Korea and then the decision whether or not to assist France in a country then known as Indochina. In the first part of the decade, Senator Joseph McCarthy sought to weed out any American known to have ties to communism. The red scare was real, each country a domino that could fall to the Soviets or China. Following the fall of McCarthy, Secretary of State Allen Dulles lead many military coups against countries that may or may not have had communist leanings. First in Irán, then in Guatemala, and later in the decade in Cuba, Americans supported uprisings that lead to American installed governments in these second and third world countries. These countries would be at the time safe from communism. Meanwhile the race with the Soviets toward nuclear superiority continued. Having successfully demonstrated the power of the atomic bomb in World War II, the government pressured scientists to develop a hydrogen bomb immensely more powerful. Lead physicist Robert Oppenheimer balked at the idea and eventually lost government clearance to continue with his life’s work. Oppenheimer was a poet who happened to be a gifted physicist. He lost clout in favor of Edward Teller who developed the hydrogen bomb, which lead to the world’s citizens fearing s nuclear war for decades to come. The Cold War had started. America was not as peaceful as the images transmitted over television waves.
Veterans returned to start families. Many took advantage of the GI Bill and attended college. The new middle class was more upwardly mobile than ever before. Families who before lived in the city moved to homes in the newly established suburbs, the first being Levittown in Long Island, New York. For a menial fee, veterans paid for a home and could live with their family in comfort. Engineers developed modern appliances made to make life easier. Families could watch television, shop at early malls such as Green Acres, and eat at McDonald’s, which first opened in 1955. Families with a little more means took vacations in the family car, usually built by General Motors in Detroit, Michigan, and could stay at a Holiday Inn hotel where kids stayed for free. At home, families watched television, went to the drive in movie, and enjoyed luxuries for minimal prices before the days of inflation. The men worked and women ran the home. Children had the choice of many friends due to the baby boom, and life, as Halberstam stated earlier, was idyllic. Boys had paper routes and joined Boy Scouts. Girls learned to sew and joined Girl Scouts. Moms helped at the PTA at school. The most trouble one could get into was being late for supper following a baseball game that ran long. Life in America suburbia appeared to be hunky dory for the generation bettering themselves following War World II.
Just as politically the United States set itself up for the next decade of international conflict, on the domestic front things were not always as cheerful as “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet.” African Americans who fought in World War II returned home and started to demand equal rights. Jackie Robinson successfully integrated Major League Baseball in 1947, and Martin Luther King Jr saw Robinson as an early crusader for civil rights. In 1954 the Brown vs Board case made it to the Supreme Court, and the justices ruled that separate was not equal. The movement sprang up overnight and gained traction when Rosa Parks would not give up her seat on the bus. In this new age of television, images of southern white supremacy broadcast on sets around the nation. Americans in all sections of the country saw the plight of African Americans with their own eyes. Southern blacks continued the great migration north and west in search of better life in northern cities. Halberstam cites basketball star Bill Russell, whose family migrated to California, but this was the reality for thousands of African Americans until the passage of the Civil Rights Act a decade later. Halberstam ends his section on Civil Rights by discussing the formation of the race beat in northern newspapers, of which he took part as a young man. He cited the integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in 1958 and how television and newspapers used their platforms to publicize the movement, which lead to the turbulent events of the 1960s. Starting with Robinson and then Parks, the movement gained steam during the peaceful 1950s, which were not as peaceful as they seemed.
Women and teenagers were not always happy either. Women who worked in factories during World War II returned home to be housewives, often in suburbia. Many were not happy with their lot in life but saw this reality as their current ststion. Living the reality of Mrs Cleaver, women at times pined for a life more fulfilling than supporting their husbands. Betty Friedan wanted to write and after years of research published The Feminine Mystique in 1963. After taking a backseat to civil rights during the 1960s, women would demand equal rights to men during the heated women’s rights movement of the 1970s. Teenagers also had new heroes thanks to television, movies, and music. Willie Mays made baseball look graceful as did Jim Brown on the football field. Marlon Brandon and James Dean were teenage rebel heartthrobs on the silver screen, and Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe experienced one of America’s more publicized celebrity romances. Sex began to sell both in pop culture and with the advent of the birth control pill. No one person personified the generation gap more so than Elvis Presley, whose sultry looks and new rock and roll sounds captivated a nation. Big band and swing were out. Rock and roll was in, and teenagers began to clamor for these new sounds, and more and more musical stars and bands produced the soundtrack of an era. The segue to the 1960s had begun.
Halberstam’s denouement leads up to the Kennedy-Nixon debates during the 1960 presidential race. Ike never wanted to be president. The war hero desired to be known as a man of peace and hoped to end his term with a nuclear test ban treaty, ending the arms race and stabilizing the Cold War. This never happened, and as Ike left office, he left with the pentagon still planning the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion, leaving this debacle in the hands of the next president. Ike’s generation born in the 1890s was out of touch with the new American. Both Kennedy and Nixon served during World War II and were young enough to be Ike’s sons. Ike saw the debates on television and believed that the moral fiber of society deteriorated overnight. Between Castro ninety miles away in Cuba and the civil rights movement lead by Martin Luther King gaining steam on a daily basis, the next president would have his hands full as he lead the United States into the 1960s, an age marked by the Cold War, space race, arms race, civil rights, and a generational gap marked by music and television that would explode by the decade’s end. The idyllic 1950s of the Cleavers, Father Knows Best and to a certain extent I Love Lucy transitioned to that of the Partridge Family, the Patty Duke Show, and later the Brady Bunch. The peaceful 1950s exploded into the turbulent 1960s.
When I note that I believe I was born a generation too late, I pine for the wholesomeness of the 1950s, when all images appeared peaceful. Kids could walk to a drug store and buy a fountain drink, and the most important debate was whether the Yankees or Dodgers would win the World Series in a given year. That place just over the Brooklyn Bridge or Rogers Park or Hill Valley, California are the images I think of when I imagine the 1950s. It was a decade where a kid could play stickball in the streets and experience countless entertainment for mere cents before the age of inflation. It was the decade where things really were as American as “baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet,” a commercial that my dad still sings on key. David Halberstam came into adulthood during the 1950s. He was a good fifteen years older than my parents and saw the world from a more mature lens. As a college graduate, he experienced the race beat first hand, and these experiences shaped who both he and the decade would become for him. Halberstam was one of the best that we had before an auto accident took him before his time. Some journalists say he was G-D. His work still ranks among the best and brightest. This ode to the 1950s has lead me to re-examine if I really would have loved to be a kid during that decade. While the times appeared rosy and wholesome, the 1960s had to have emerged from somewhere, and that somewhere was the 1950s, as described by Halberstam, as a time thrilling to be alive as younger generations waited for the world to explode.
*5 star read*
March 13, 2017
This book is an interesting and engaging overview of the 1950s in the USA. The author writes with a genuine enthusiasm and an almost conversational style and covers a very wide spectrum of topics. I certainly learnt quite a bit, so I'm glad I decided to take a chance on this book based on a recommendation.
I have two problems with the book, though; one quite minor and one quite major.
The minor quibble is that Halberstam writes this book from such a US-centric point-of-view that I really think the title would better have been 'The Fifties in America' or something along those lines. Like so many American writers, Halberstam forgets the rest of the world even exists until the US is at war with part of it. It doesn't seem to even enter his head that anybody who isn't living in the USA might want to read his book. As I say, though, this is a minor quibble and I'm aware I'm probably being a bit nit-picky.
The major problem I had with this book, however, is the ending... or, rather, the lack of one. The book just stops dead halfway through the presidential race between Nixon and Kennedy. If I'd been reading a paper copy of this book I'd have been tempted to check that a bunch of pages hadn't been torn out, it ended so abruptly. There is no conclusion, no afterword, no epilogue, no post script... In fact, there is absolutely no attempt made to summarise or extrapolate the impact of the 1950s on the decades that followed, which I found very strange and somewhat offputting to be honest. It felt like the author just thought 'I can't be bothered to write any more' one day and just sent it off to the publisher unfinished.
This is a shame as, other than this, The Fifties is a very informative and entertaining read.
I have two problems with the book, though; one quite minor and one quite major.
The minor quibble is that Halberstam writes this book from such a US-centric point-of-view that I really think the title would better have been 'The Fifties in America' or something along those lines. Like so many American writers, Halberstam forgets the rest of the world even exists until the US is at war with part of it. It doesn't seem to even enter his head that anybody who isn't living in the USA might want to read his book. As I say, though, this is a minor quibble and I'm aware I'm probably being a bit nit-picky.
The major problem I had with this book, however, is the ending... or, rather, the lack of one. The book just stops dead halfway through the presidential race between Nixon and Kennedy. If I'd been reading a paper copy of this book I'd have been tempted to check that a bunch of pages hadn't been torn out, it ended so abruptly. There is no conclusion, no afterword, no epilogue, no post script... In fact, there is absolutely no attempt made to summarise or extrapolate the impact of the 1950s on the decades that followed, which I found very strange and somewhat offputting to be honest. It felt like the author just thought 'I can't be bothered to write any more' one day and just sent it off to the publisher unfinished.
This is a shame as, other than this, The Fifties is a very informative and entertaining read.
September 24, 2024
What can I say, the decade of the fifties compressed in this most important book, The Fifties, by David Halberstam complete with pages of outstanding photographs of this period of time. The fifties were captured in black and white and most often from still photographers. The pace of the fifties seemed slower, almost languid. However, social ferment was beginning just beneath this placid surface. It was during the fifties that the basic research in the development of the birth-control pill was taking place although it would not be until the next decade that this profound scientific advance would begin to impact society. It was in the fifties that the Supreme Court ruled in a ground-breaking case of Brown v. Board of Education, resulting in the integration of an all-white school in Little Rock, Arkansas, best known as the Little Rock Nine. One of the most powerful currents taking place and changing American life in this decade was the increasing importance of black culture.
The book begins with J. Robert Oppenheimer and the scientific advancement of the Trinity site in the isolated and top-secret location of Los Alamos, New Mexico. The goal and ultimate achievement was to develop a bomb capable to ending World War II. This was also the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy who was relentless in his search for Communists among the government with J. Robert Oppenheimer his chief target with hearings taking place ultimately stripping Oppenheimer of his legacy and his position at the nuclear facility. Oppenheimer had diligently recruited the best scientific minds from throughout the world to meet the goals of the creation of a nuclear bomb to aid in the ending of the war. Posthumously, many years later, J. Robert Oppenheimer was cleared of all charges.
In the decade of the fifties, there was also the phenomenon of Elvis Presley thought to be the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century by Leonard Bernstein because he introduced the beat to everything introducing a whole new social revolution bringing on the sixties. Country blended with black blues was a strain that some would call rock-a-billy, something so powerful it would go right to the center of American popular culture. The book also addresses the television shows of the fifties starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez, the Ozzie and Harriet Nelson family show, and Leave it to Beaver with Ward and June Cleaver. This was the decade that introduced the television and it became a phenomenon.
The fifties wouldn’t be complete without the war heros of World War II including generals Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower. The presidency of Eisenhower was also covered as he contemplated his legacy, an end to the arms race. There was also the Emmet Till lynching and the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr. as the country was poised for the a tumultuous decade, unlike the fifties where the seeds were quietly being sown.
David Halberstam was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author. According to his biography, he is best known for both his courageous coverage of the Vietnam War for the New York Times, as well his many non-fiction books covering a wide array of topics from the plight of Detroit and the auto industry to the captivating origins of baseball’s fiercest rivalry. I think the author in his note probably sums up the silently tumultuous decade best as follows:
The book begins with J. Robert Oppenheimer and the scientific advancement of the Trinity site in the isolated and top-secret location of Los Alamos, New Mexico. The goal and ultimate achievement was to develop a bomb capable to ending World War II. This was also the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy who was relentless in his search for Communists among the government with J. Robert Oppenheimer his chief target with hearings taking place ultimately stripping Oppenheimer of his legacy and his position at the nuclear facility. Oppenheimer had diligently recruited the best scientific minds from throughout the world to meet the goals of the creation of a nuclear bomb to aid in the ending of the war. Posthumously, many years later, J. Robert Oppenheimer was cleared of all charges.
“At the very instant of the Trinity explosion, Oppenheimer quoted a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita: ‘If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One. . . I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.’”
In the decade of the fifties, there was also the phenomenon of Elvis Presley thought to be the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century by Leonard Bernstein because he introduced the beat to everything introducing a whole new social revolution bringing on the sixties. Country blended with black blues was a strain that some would call rock-a-billy, something so powerful it would go right to the center of American popular culture. The book also addresses the television shows of the fifties starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez, the Ozzie and Harriet Nelson family show, and Leave it to Beaver with Ward and June Cleaver. This was the decade that introduced the television and it became a phenomenon.
The fifties wouldn’t be complete without the war heros of World War II including generals Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower. The presidency of Eisenhower was also covered as he contemplated his legacy, an end to the arms race. There was also the Emmet Till lynching and the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr. as the country was poised for the a tumultuous decade, unlike the fifties where the seeds were quietly being sown.
“One of the most powerful currents taking place and changing in American life in this decade—taking place even as few recognized it—was the increasing impact and importance of black culture on daily American life.”
David Halberstam was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author. According to his biography, he is best known for both his courageous coverage of the Vietnam War for the New York Times, as well his many non-fiction books covering a wide array of topics from the plight of Detroit and the auto industry to the captivating origins of baseball’s fiercest rivalry. I think the author in his note probably sums up the silently tumultuous decade best as follows:
“I am a child of the fifties. I graduated from high school in 1951, from college in 1955, and my values were shaped in that era. I wanted to write a book which would not only explore what happened in the fifties, a more interesting and complicated decade than most people imagine, but in addition, to show why the sixties took place—because so many of the forces which exploded in the sixties had begun to come together in the fifties, the pace of life in America quickened.”
August 12, 2013
So David Halberstam, a winner of The Norman Mailer Prize and the Pulitzer prize, was unable to keep from writing historical tomes without filling them with his own, subjective views on the world. That tells me something about those prizes, that's for certain.
According to Halberstam, the movies of the fifties can be summed up in Brando's performance of A Streetcar Named Desire and James Dean's performance in Rebel Without a Cause. Considering the wide range of movies produced in that era this tells me a great deal about the author.
How odd to see him spend far more time on the political campaign of Adlai Stevenson than Ike, the man who would define politics for this decade. You can easily hear Halberstam's disappointment when Ike wins the election.
His glorified accounts of Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey (he says more good things about Kinsey than Eisenhower), along with his effusive admiration for the Beat Poets and the attacks on traditional values by Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan turned this book into a liberal's fantasy.
At least he did a good job of detailing where so many of the origins of our present (U.S.) decay can be found.
According to Halberstam, the movies of the fifties can be summed up in Brando's performance of A Streetcar Named Desire and James Dean's performance in Rebel Without a Cause. Considering the wide range of movies produced in that era this tells me a great deal about the author.
How odd to see him spend far more time on the political campaign of Adlai Stevenson than Ike, the man who would define politics for this decade. You can easily hear Halberstam's disappointment when Ike wins the election.
His glorified accounts of Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey (he says more good things about Kinsey than Eisenhower), along with his effusive admiration for the Beat Poets and the attacks on traditional values by Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan turned this book into a liberal's fantasy.
At least he did a good job of detailing where so many of the origins of our present (U.S.) decay can be found.
January 17, 2022
As I look back on the previous year (2021), I put a list together of the books that for some reason Highly impressed me. The book I found most enjoyable to read was Pete Hamill's "North River."
The novel I thought was closest to perfection was Ann Patchett's, 'The Magician's Assistant." I doubt Ms. Patchett herself would agree with me; nevertheless the tens of thousands of people who read it.
The most important book I read was Walter Isaacson's, "The Code Breaker," followed by three biographers from the great David Halberstam. So as 2022 rang in, I decided to read David Halberstam's, "The Fifties."
In short, it was the best decision I have made this year. "The Fifties," is the best book I have ever read about an entire decade in 20th century America. It actually starts off in the 1940's and the creation of the Atom Bomb and Robert Oppenheimer. And then after Mr. Oppenheimer expresses concerns about the creation of the hydrogen bomb, which was one hundred thousand times more powerful than the Atom Bomb, being called in to testify before the Senate by that crusader of all that is good and non-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy and in not so many words was accused of being a communist.
It moves on to General Douglas MacArthur, a man whose ego had no limits and whose misinformation about the Chinese intentions in Korea cost the needless deaths of thousands of American soldiers. Thankfully, he was finally relieved by President Truman and after his farewell tour through the states was quickly forgotten.
The author then moves on to the 'beat generation,' and the impact of Jack Kerouac and the poet Allen Ginsberg, followed by the phenomena of Elvis Presley and black musicians, and Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio.
The above things mentioned are just a few of the topics Mr. Halberstam goes into deeply. He doesn't miss a thing, and his storytelling is mesmerizing. Oh, I so strongly recommend this book, so very strongly.
The novel I thought was closest to perfection was Ann Patchett's, 'The Magician's Assistant." I doubt Ms. Patchett herself would agree with me; nevertheless the tens of thousands of people who read it.
The most important book I read was Walter Isaacson's, "The Code Breaker," followed by three biographers from the great David Halberstam. So as 2022 rang in, I decided to read David Halberstam's, "The Fifties."
In short, it was the best decision I have made this year. "The Fifties," is the best book I have ever read about an entire decade in 20th century America. It actually starts off in the 1940's and the creation of the Atom Bomb and Robert Oppenheimer. And then after Mr. Oppenheimer expresses concerns about the creation of the hydrogen bomb, which was one hundred thousand times more powerful than the Atom Bomb, being called in to testify before the Senate by that crusader of all that is good and non-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy and in not so many words was accused of being a communist.
It moves on to General Douglas MacArthur, a man whose ego had no limits and whose misinformation about the Chinese intentions in Korea cost the needless deaths of thousands of American soldiers. Thankfully, he was finally relieved by President Truman and after his farewell tour through the states was quickly forgotten.
The author then moves on to the 'beat generation,' and the impact of Jack Kerouac and the poet Allen Ginsberg, followed by the phenomena of Elvis Presley and black musicians, and Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio.
The above things mentioned are just a few of the topics Mr. Halberstam goes into deeply. He doesn't miss a thing, and his storytelling is mesmerizing. Oh, I so strongly recommend this book, so very strongly.
April 23, 2011
Everything I've ever read by David Halberstam has been rewarding and everything, except his early and probably most important book, The Best and the Brightest, has been a sheer pleasure. The Best and the Brightest reads most like an academic history. His other history books are more popular in their style, flowing like collections of short stories on a single theme.
The Fifties interested me because that was Dad's decade. He was in his thirties, done with school, back from Europe with a war-bride, got his first house. obtained employment with the company he eventually retired from and had his two children. It was also the decade of my earliest memories. History classes in high school, college and graduate school rarely seemed to get that far and if they did it was usually about foreign, not domestic, affairs. I wanted, finally, to see how one grownup at the time, but distant enough from it to attempt objectivity, might portray it. My own memories were those of a child, from a child's perspective.
I was not disappointed. Indeed, I was fascinated. It was like reading the bible for the first time. I already knew something about most everything, but I'd never put it together so well or with so much detail--I'd not known how much I knew, but Halberstam revealed it to me.
The Fifties interested me because that was Dad's decade. He was in his thirties, done with school, back from Europe with a war-bride, got his first house. obtained employment with the company he eventually retired from and had his two children. It was also the decade of my earliest memories. History classes in high school, college and graduate school rarely seemed to get that far and if they did it was usually about foreign, not domestic, affairs. I wanted, finally, to see how one grownup at the time, but distant enough from it to attempt objectivity, might portray it. My own memories were those of a child, from a child's perspective.
I was not disappointed. Indeed, I was fascinated. It was like reading the bible for the first time. I already knew something about most everything, but I'd never put it together so well or with so much detail--I'd not known how much I knew, but Halberstam revealed it to me.
February 23, 2010
David Halberstam was a giant in my opinion and I have loved every book he ever wrote, including the ones about baseball!!! This window on the era of bomb shelters and President Eisenhower is just stunning. If you remember the 1950s, as I do, it is like time travel.....if you don't remember the 1950s, you will after reading this book. The book has a style that I would call comfortable.........Halberstam was a true storyteller as well as a great historian of the American experience.
December 27, 2023
I've wanted to read this book ever since it was published in 1993, but I was daunted by its over 600 pages which I knew would take a chunk of time. Now that I've finished it I feel like I've checked an item off my bucket list. I was aged 4 to 14 during the fifties, and though I was living a sheltered life I was more of a news nerd than was true for most youth of my age. I have fairly clear memories of hearing and reading about most of the incidents mentioned in the book that occurred during the second half of the decade.
There are many examples in the book I could discuss, but one that comes to mind is the TV game show called Twenty-One. I have a distinct memory of favoring Herbert Stempel over Charles Van Doren, and I was amazed to learn later after the scandal broke that Stempel was judged to be too unappealing as a contestant thus needed to lose to Van Doren because he had a more pleasing demeanor. The fact that I preferred the designated loser over the popular winner probably indicates my naivety regarding American cultural preferences, but I'd rather think that it shows my early insightfulness in preferring a blue collar underdog over the favored ivory tower icon.
Another event from the book that I followed in the news at the time was Sputnik and America's great embarrassment at not being the first nation to place a man-made satellite into earth obit. This embarrassment was only exacerbated when the Navy's Vanguard rocket blew-up on the launch pad. The fear of a "missile gap" that followed and subsequent emphasis in education placed on physics/engineering/science may have been influential personally by leading me down the path toward getting an engineering degree. However, I never contributed to narrowing the missile gap.
Except for the Korean War the Fifties are generally remembered as a time of peace under the shadow of the Cold War. However many covert actions taken by the CIA during the Fifties planted the seeds which later bloomed into full blown crises in later decades in Iran, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Vietnam.
A significant portion of this book's text consists of mini biographies of the individuals at the center of the described incidents. I was disappointed that the table of contents for the book simply listed chapters by numbers one through forty-six with no descriptive title which I found to be unhelpful in describing the breath of contents covered. I considered making my own descriptive table of contents, but decided it would take too much time. Instead I'm providing the following description of the book's contents by borrowing from this review. It does not provide an exhaustive list of incidents and names covered by mini biography, but does provide a sampling overview of the book.
He writes of the McCarthy communist witch hunts; of the Korean War and General MacArthur’s pomposity and subsequent demotion and humiliation; of Oppenheimer and the development of the hydrogen bomb; of racial inequalities in the South and the birth of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. as its leader; of the business success of General Motors and Holiday Inn and McDonald’s and of the people behind them; of the scientific research and sociological turmoil leading up to the development of the birth control pill; of the shaping of American cinema by outstanding figures such as Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe; of the influence of Elvis Presley on modern rock music; of the rise of the beat generation as embodied by such iconoclasts as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs; of the shaping of American popular literature by Mickey Spillane, the novel “Peyton Place”, and cheap paperbacks; of the rise of television as a force in American society and advertising, epitomized by “I Love Lucy”, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”, and “The $64,000 Question”. The list could go on and on, and each story is as fascinating as the last. The juxtaposition of so many such diverse but enthralling stories gives an amazing mosaic of a crucial formative decade in American history.
There are many examples in the book I could discuss, but one that comes to mind is the TV game show called Twenty-One. I have a distinct memory of favoring Herbert Stempel over Charles Van Doren, and I was amazed to learn later after the scandal broke that Stempel was judged to be too unappealing as a contestant thus needed to lose to Van Doren because he had a more pleasing demeanor. The fact that I preferred the designated loser over the popular winner probably indicates my naivety regarding American cultural preferences, but I'd rather think that it shows my early insightfulness in preferring a blue collar underdog over the favored ivory tower icon.
Another event from the book that I followed in the news at the time was Sputnik and America's great embarrassment at not being the first nation to place a man-made satellite into earth obit. This embarrassment was only exacerbated when the Navy's Vanguard rocket blew-up on the launch pad. The fear of a "missile gap" that followed and subsequent emphasis in education placed on physics/engineering/science may have been influential personally by leading me down the path toward getting an engineering degree. However, I never contributed to narrowing the missile gap.
Except for the Korean War the Fifties are generally remembered as a time of peace under the shadow of the Cold War. However many covert actions taken by the CIA during the Fifties planted the seeds which later bloomed into full blown crises in later decades in Iran, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Vietnam.
It was not by chance that the names of Central American and Caribbean dictators came toThe Sixties are generally considered the civil rights decade, but important civil right events that occurred during the Fifties includes Brown v. Board of Education, Emmett Till, Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Little Rock integration of Central High.
read like a rogue's list of the region's most despised despots: Somoza, Trujillo, Batista, Ubico of Guatemala, and Galvez of Honduras. All of them were backed by the American government and its partner in the area, United Fruit. (p.376)
A significant portion of this book's text consists of mini biographies of the individuals at the center of the described incidents. I was disappointed that the table of contents for the book simply listed chapters by numbers one through forty-six with no descriptive title which I found to be unhelpful in describing the breath of contents covered. I considered making my own descriptive table of contents, but decided it would take too much time. Instead I'm providing the following description of the book's contents by borrowing from this review. It does not provide an exhaustive list of incidents and names covered by mini biography, but does provide a sampling overview of the book.
He writes of the McCarthy communist witch hunts; of the Korean War and General MacArthur’s pomposity and subsequent demotion and humiliation; of Oppenheimer and the development of the hydrogen bomb; of racial inequalities in the South and the birth of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. as its leader; of the business success of General Motors and Holiday Inn and McDonald’s and of the people behind them; of the scientific research and sociological turmoil leading up to the development of the birth control pill; of the shaping of American cinema by outstanding figures such as Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe; of the influence of Elvis Presley on modern rock music; of the rise of the beat generation as embodied by such iconoclasts as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs; of the shaping of American popular literature by Mickey Spillane, the novel “Peyton Place”, and cheap paperbacks; of the rise of television as a force in American society and advertising, epitomized by “I Love Lucy”, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”, and “The $64,000 Question”. The list could go on and on, and each story is as fascinating as the last. The juxtaposition of so many such diverse but enthralling stories gives an amazing mosaic of a crucial formative decade in American history.
August 1, 2025
"The Fifties" is a riveting study of our times (if you came into the fifties as a kid as I did). David Halberstam's excellent book is an essential history for students of American history. I say 'riveting' because I couldn't put it down while reading it. Halberstam puts social movements and political conflicts into a clear context without political leaning. I felt richer in an intellectual sense when I had finished reading it.
October 30, 2017
Halberstam writes like a fuddy-duddy who has no respect for Elvis Presley, or James Dean, or for anything connected with the glory days of early rock and roll.
On the other hand, there's some fascinating information about the early space program, in America and the USSR, the birth of the Civil Rights movement, and even the quiz show scandals on television. But not many men can totally hate on Douglas Macarthur AND Elvis Presley!
What drove me to distraction as I read this book was trying to figure out the link between MacArthur and Elvis. Halberstam hated both of them. But how could an aristocratic army officer with enormous personal dignity, strategic and tactical genius, and ultra-right wing politics have anything in common with a greasy punk kid who had no values of any kind except moaning and making women want to touch themselves?
Finally I figured it out. What Elvis and MacArthur had in common -- what David Halberstam can't stand -- is that neither one of them were team players. Halberstam, though he never says it, is really first and last an organization man. In Fifties terms, Halberstam is the man in the gray flannel suit. He admires strivers and upwardly mobile success, but only when it comes through ticket punching and playing by the rules. He loves guys like Joe DiMaggio and Edward R. Murrow because they worked hard to conform, to wear suits and act dignified, to efface their humble working-class origins. Elvis and Douglas MacArthur offend him because -- in his mind, at least -- both of them were showboats, egomaniacs, only in it for themselves. And he's right, as far as it goes. Elvis could be vulgar, and MacArthur could be ruthless, but neither of them could ever be anything but themselves. Halberstam is terrified by that level of self-assurance.
He admires talent but genius scares the hell out of him.
It was ironic, Carol Storm often thought, that a man as pompous and pedantic as Halberstam was drawn so often to write about turbulent times and passionate individuals. He wrote always with an air of great importance, anxious to convey not only the seriousness of the subject but his own stature as journalist with every word he wrote. Yet when confronted with disturbing ideas or the inconvenient existence of perspectives different from his own, he seemed surprisingly clueless, almost at a loss. Perhaps in the end, his greatest gift was simply to trivialize the momentous, and to complicate the obvious.
On the other hand, there's some fascinating information about the early space program, in America and the USSR, the birth of the Civil Rights movement, and even the quiz show scandals on television. But not many men can totally hate on Douglas Macarthur AND Elvis Presley!
What drove me to distraction as I read this book was trying to figure out the link between MacArthur and Elvis. Halberstam hated both of them. But how could an aristocratic army officer with enormous personal dignity, strategic and tactical genius, and ultra-right wing politics have anything in common with a greasy punk kid who had no values of any kind except moaning and making women want to touch themselves?
Finally I figured it out. What Elvis and MacArthur had in common -- what David Halberstam can't stand -- is that neither one of them were team players. Halberstam, though he never says it, is really first and last an organization man. In Fifties terms, Halberstam is the man in the gray flannel suit. He admires strivers and upwardly mobile success, but only when it comes through ticket punching and playing by the rules. He loves guys like Joe DiMaggio and Edward R. Murrow because they worked hard to conform, to wear suits and act dignified, to efface their humble working-class origins. Elvis and Douglas MacArthur offend him because -- in his mind, at least -- both of them were showboats, egomaniacs, only in it for themselves. And he's right, as far as it goes. Elvis could be vulgar, and MacArthur could be ruthless, but neither of them could ever be anything but themselves. Halberstam is terrified by that level of self-assurance.
He admires talent but genius scares the hell out of him.
It was ironic, Carol Storm often thought, that a man as pompous and pedantic as Halberstam was drawn so often to write about turbulent times and passionate individuals. He wrote always with an air of great importance, anxious to convey not only the seriousness of the subject but his own stature as journalist with every word he wrote. Yet when confronted with disturbing ideas or the inconvenient existence of perspectives different from his own, he seemed surprisingly clueless, almost at a loss. Perhaps in the end, his greatest gift was simply to trivialize the momentous, and to complicate the obvious.
May 20, 2019
A interesting look at the ups and downs of the Fifties.
May 4, 2024
One of my favorite history books I've ever read. This is a comprehensive overview of the decade of the 1950's. I decided to read this book because when I was growing up the 50's were always a decade that was bypassed in school. My teachers seemed to want to include World War II and then maybe jump straight to Vietnam or end the course as June was quickly approaching. I remember recalling how the 50's had this aura of everything being tranquil and people played with their hoola hoops and were fascinated by this new idea of television and watching Ozzie and Harriet or I Love Lucy.
Halberstam writes very interesting prose. This is a long book, but it is not burdensome in any way. It's kind of like eating a bag of chips that you like. It goes down easy, is light and you don't realize how much you've gone through in a short amount of time. Halberstam includes just about every event that you could think of associated with the 50's. Politics, pop culture, the space race, innovations, personalities, and major events are all given their due space. Some of the things that most caught my attention were the Quiz Show scandal, the U.S. interventions in Iran and Guatemala, the tragedy of Emmett Till, the race to build a hydrogen bomb, the fascination with Marilyn Monroe, and Grace Metalious's chronicle of small town life in "Peyton Place".
Halberstam covers so much, but he does have his biases. The most glaring is early in the book when he writes with vitriol against Douglas MacArthur, who he clearly doesn't like. I learned a lot from reading this book and will never again view the 50's as the decade that was a placeholder between World War II and the unrest of the 1960's.
Halberstam writes very interesting prose. This is a long book, but it is not burdensome in any way. It's kind of like eating a bag of chips that you like. It goes down easy, is light and you don't realize how much you've gone through in a short amount of time. Halberstam includes just about every event that you could think of associated with the 50's. Politics, pop culture, the space race, innovations, personalities, and major events are all given their due space. Some of the things that most caught my attention were the Quiz Show scandal, the U.S. interventions in Iran and Guatemala, the tragedy of Emmett Till, the race to build a hydrogen bomb, the fascination with Marilyn Monroe, and Grace Metalious's chronicle of small town life in "Peyton Place".
Halberstam covers so much, but he does have his biases. The most glaring is early in the book when he writes with vitriol against Douglas MacArthur, who he clearly doesn't like. I learned a lot from reading this book and will never again view the 50's as the decade that was a placeholder between World War II and the unrest of the 1960's.
February 25, 2013
If you happen to love American History as much as I do, please read this fabulous book! I just completed the 3rd re-read of David Halberstam's in depth look at the culture of the 1950's. Aside from the fact that he was a marvelous writer (who is sorely missed) -- Mr. H tells us everything we should know about America in the mid 20th century. How (and why) Playboy got started, how Walmart came into being, the alienation caused by the deluge of white-bread television that fostered the myth of the American family (that haunts us to this day), McCarthyism, Eisenhower and Stevenson, the rise of post-war gender discrimination against women and how advertising fostered female guilt and the "Feminine Mystique," the stardom of Marilyn Monroe, movies,the birth of rock and roll and Elvis, the rise of the corporation, TV dinners, "The Pill".... you name it. If it came out of the 50's, Mr. Halberstam includes it. It is the story of the baby boomers.
I love all of David Halberstam's books, but this one has always been my favorite. In depth but very entertaining, "The Fifties" is the most complete look at this very misunderstood decade. Rather than being an "innocent time" before the 60's, he shows us how much change was churning beneath the surface and how the tumult of the 60's *had to happen* as it's outgrowth.
I love all of David Halberstam's books, but this one has always been my favorite. In depth but very entertaining, "The Fifties" is the most complete look at this very misunderstood decade. Rather than being an "innocent time" before the 60's, he shows us how much change was churning beneath the surface and how the tumult of the 60's *had to happen* as it's outgrowth.
October 11, 2014
The 1950s is a seminal decade in the history of our nation. Some of the things that people believe about it are true, but by no means all. It was fun to read David Halberstam's book The Fifties, and it brought back a flood of memories.
When I look back on the decade, what I remember most was my fear of thermonuclear war, which looked like a distinct possibility after Sputnik was launched in 1957 and Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 aircraft were downed by the Russians in 1959. I was in my middle school years at that point, and I read Time Magazine religiously from cover to cover. The news was not good: Nikita Khruschchev was a canny Soviet leader who was adept at making the Americans frightened until his downfall a few years later.
My only complaint about Halberstam's book is its organization. The chapters were more or less random, interspersing cultural, economic, social, and political events. It could very well have gone on for another five hundred pages, bringing in additional topics such as Mad Magazine, Westerns, Film Noir, the Mafia, Suez, and the Congo. It had to stop somewhere, and, as I was reading on the Kindle, I was shocked that it stopped suddenly at the 80% mark, the rest of the book consisting of photos, a bibliography (a good one, too), and notes.
At worst, the book is a great starting point; at its best, a reminder of what we have managed to survive in that anxious time.
When I look back on the decade, what I remember most was my fear of thermonuclear war, which looked like a distinct possibility after Sputnik was launched in 1957 and Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 aircraft were downed by the Russians in 1959. I was in my middle school years at that point, and I read Time Magazine religiously from cover to cover. The news was not good: Nikita Khruschchev was a canny Soviet leader who was adept at making the Americans frightened until his downfall a few years later.
My only complaint about Halberstam's book is its organization. The chapters were more or less random, interspersing cultural, economic, social, and political events. It could very well have gone on for another five hundred pages, bringing in additional topics such as Mad Magazine, Westerns, Film Noir, the Mafia, Suez, and the Congo. It had to stop somewhere, and, as I was reading on the Kindle, I was shocked that it stopped suddenly at the 80% mark, the rest of the book consisting of photos, a bibliography (a good one, too), and notes.
At worst, the book is a great starting point; at its best, a reminder of what we have managed to survive in that anxious time.
August 30, 2018
This book has been re-issued several times. This copy was provided by Open Road Media and Netgalley.
This a lengthy book that attempts to cover an entire decade. The fifties did indeed bring about a great many changes to our country.
This book reminds us of how suburbia took hold, motel chains like Holiday Inn took off , as well as McDonald's.
We revisited the cold war , McCarthyism, Eisenhower's administration, Korea, desegregation, television, music, the pill, popular actors and movies, bombs, Cuba, popular automobiles, and a lot of politics.
For me personally, I enjoyed the chapters that focused on the roles of women and their growing dissatisfaction and the subtle brainwashing the popular magazines used to sell an image that was impossible to maintain.
I also enjoyed the chapters on pop culture. Elvis, Marilyn, James Dean , Marlon Brando, Lucy, and the infamous quiz show scandal.
However, there were more chapters devoted to the H bomb, wars, and politics than anything else. While a lot of that was interesting, it did read like very dry history and I often found myself tuning out.
I did enjoy most of the book and learned many things about the fifties I didn't know and I enjoyed the nostalgia as well. There are a few photos provided at the end of the book.
Overall this one gets a B +
Thanks again to the publisher and Netgalley for the digital copy.
This a lengthy book that attempts to cover an entire decade. The fifties did indeed bring about a great many changes to our country.
This book reminds us of how suburbia took hold, motel chains like Holiday Inn took off , as well as McDonald's.
We revisited the cold war , McCarthyism, Eisenhower's administration, Korea, desegregation, television, music, the pill, popular actors and movies, bombs, Cuba, popular automobiles, and a lot of politics.
For me personally, I enjoyed the chapters that focused on the roles of women and their growing dissatisfaction and the subtle brainwashing the popular magazines used to sell an image that was impossible to maintain.
I also enjoyed the chapters on pop culture. Elvis, Marilyn, James Dean , Marlon Brando, Lucy, and the infamous quiz show scandal.
However, there were more chapters devoted to the H bomb, wars, and politics than anything else. While a lot of that was interesting, it did read like very dry history and I often found myself tuning out.
I did enjoy most of the book and learned many things about the fifties I didn't know and I enjoyed the nostalgia as well. There are a few photos provided at the end of the book.
Overall this one gets a B +
Thanks again to the publisher and Netgalley for the digital copy.
May 24, 2023
11/2018
A book I've been reading for months. Ambitious, a book covering an entire decade. I mean, I only gave it four stars because it was so sprawling it was hard to focus or stay focused, but I certainly learned a lot. Things like that Eisenhower was the last American president born in the 19th century. And who Adlai Stevenson was (he was the Democrat who ran against Eisenhower). Many things were terrible, including McCarthy and McCarther. I hate reading about war, but getting the facts about the Korean war was good. The Nuclear testing so awful, making the Hydrogen bomb (even stronger then the Atomic bomb), testing it. Also horrible, lynchings (Emmett Till), and the racism of white Southerners freaking out about integration (it would be nice to read about the past and think we've gotten better, but sadly, I think our country's slipped back with the White Supremacists and police shooting and killing black men like once a month).
...... But, a lot of what was huge in the 1960s really began in the 1950s. Birth Control pills? Invented and tested in the 50s. The rise of black people? Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were in the 50s. The rise of counterculture? The Beatniks did it first. Sex? Kinsey. Etc, etc. Just because the film was black and white doesn't mean life was.
A book I've been reading for months. Ambitious, a book covering an entire decade. I mean, I only gave it four stars because it was so sprawling it was hard to focus or stay focused, but I certainly learned a lot. Things like that Eisenhower was the last American president born in the 19th century. And who Adlai Stevenson was (he was the Democrat who ran against Eisenhower). Many things were terrible, including McCarthy and McCarther. I hate reading about war, but getting the facts about the Korean war was good. The Nuclear testing so awful, making the Hydrogen bomb (even stronger then the Atomic bomb), testing it. Also horrible, lynchings (Emmett Till), and the racism of white Southerners freaking out about integration (it would be nice to read about the past and think we've gotten better, but sadly, I think our country's slipped back with the White Supremacists and police shooting and killing black men like once a month).
...... But, a lot of what was huge in the 1960s really began in the 1950s. Birth Control pills? Invented and tested in the 50s. The rise of black people? Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were in the 50s. The rise of counterculture? The Beatniks did it first. Sex? Kinsey. Etc, etc. Just because the film was black and white doesn't mean life was.
December 11, 2022
Loved it. I really enjoyed learning about this time. And will delve deeper into a lot of the subjects and events such as Elvis, Marilyn, and Castro.
August 29, 2014
It has occupied 2 ½ inches of my bookcase for close to 20 years. THE FIFTIES is Halberstam’s 732 page grand epic of American history published in 1993 which covers all things political, cultural, social, and economic for the decade most often thought of as the “good old days”. Here we have the cold war, space, Levittown, suburbia, Television, Ozzie and Harriet, I love Lucy, Elvis, the Kinsey report, Castro, the CIA, U2 flights, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, McCarthy, Eisenhower vs Taft, Peyton Place, Richard Nixon, the Birth Control pill, consumerism, cars with bigger engines and bigger fins, the woman’s place in the home, sports, corporate conformity (The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit), racism and the fight for civil rights. The book offers a broad sweep and through a series of chapters which are in effect small essays Halberstam brilliantly gives an insightful review of this major decade. A decade that Halberstam sees as setting the stage for the social change in the much more publicized 1960’s and which really offers up many of the issues we confront today. (One great thing about the book is that you don’t have to read it cover to cover as I did. You can stick your toe in a chapter here and a chapter there and be well rewarded.)
One theme in the book shows how the culture and stereotypes seems to recycle themselves. For example he mentions that women were needed in the work force in World War II. However, before the war more than half the states has laws prohibiting married women from working. A majority of public schools, 43 percent of public utilities, and 13% of department stores had policies not to hire wives. A poll showed 82% of Americans disapproved a married woman working if she had a husband. So when the war was over those women who had been so needed were fired, 800,000 alone in the aircraft industry. Within two years over 2 million woman lost their jobs. Women were how expected to live in suburban homes with their great new time saving appliances. No one seemed to expect to hear that they may not be happy.
There are a lot of issues and situations that may give any reader pause to reflect. The rise of television and its impact on the news is one. But the issue of race and how blacks were treated is just horrific. It is really hard to believe that this was only 60 years ago and I became a teenager during that decade. No doubt you can see the roots of the cultural issues surrounding race and the need for change. But no doubt we can often still see that history and culture still hangs over the country today.
This is a terrific book that is in part a page turner that I expect you will find constantly interesting and like Halberstan’s other books extremely well written. (By the way it does not read like a twenty year old book.)
One theme in the book shows how the culture and stereotypes seems to recycle themselves. For example he mentions that women were needed in the work force in World War II. However, before the war more than half the states has laws prohibiting married women from working. A majority of public schools, 43 percent of public utilities, and 13% of department stores had policies not to hire wives. A poll showed 82% of Americans disapproved a married woman working if she had a husband. So when the war was over those women who had been so needed were fired, 800,000 alone in the aircraft industry. Within two years over 2 million woman lost their jobs. Women were how expected to live in suburban homes with their great new time saving appliances. No one seemed to expect to hear that they may not be happy.
There are a lot of issues and situations that may give any reader pause to reflect. The rise of television and its impact on the news is one. But the issue of race and how blacks were treated is just horrific. It is really hard to believe that this was only 60 years ago and I became a teenager during that decade. No doubt you can see the roots of the cultural issues surrounding race and the need for change. But no doubt we can often still see that history and culture still hangs over the country today.
This is a terrific book that is in part a page turner that I expect you will find constantly interesting and like Halberstan’s other books extremely well written. (By the way it does not read like a twenty year old book.)
December 18, 2012
Halberstam's epic masterpiece is a colossal historic narrative of the 50's that combines his usual incisive social commentary with sharp insight, weaving together seamlessly throughout. Always lively and analytical, The Fifties is arranged so well chronologically that it has a cinematic feel to it. It is easy for the reader to visualize the activity in each of the chapters - and it becomes addictive, compulsive reading after a short while.
The main, or overarching theme, of the book that he returns to in several chapters is the effect that America's obsession with the perceptions of the threat that Communism held then. Halberstam excellently conveys how the head-to-head confrontations transformed the American political landscape causing a dramatic shift from Democratic control to Republican dominance during the decade.
But there are many 'stories' to tell about the 50's - and are told here. An early chapter explains the development of fast food and the 'marketing magic' behind it when discussing the McDonald brothers & Ray Kroc. Other chapters discuss how TV caused a major upheaval change in American culture, effecting virtually every key event or figure during the decade. The use of images and film, mass distribution of information and the editorializing of 'talking heads' on TV instantly changed the ways in which Americans could be influenced - and created the problem of "what's rhetoric - what's truth?"
Interestingly, Halberstam focuses on the 'anti-heroes' of Hollywood during the era like Marlon Brando & James Dean. And he focuses on the vulnerability of Marilyn Monroe instead of her sexuality and mass appeal (both much discussed elsewhere already previously). There's also Levittown, the creation of Holiday Inn, the Quiz Show scandals, the invention of the birth control pill, the racial crisis at Little Rock...and so much more.
The most important point I took away from my reading of this superior book is how the 50's paved the way for the social unrest and cultural disorder that came to a seething head in the 60's. It's critical to anyone's understanding to get a historical perspective of the decade of the 50's to fully comprehend why the changes that happened in the 60's came to be. Halberstam's comprehensive - yet even at 800 pages I'd say concise - The Fifties is a convincing, persuasive and logical account that neatly makes it evident that the changes of the 60's were a natural result of the previous decade.
The main, or overarching theme, of the book that he returns to in several chapters is the effect that America's obsession with the perceptions of the threat that Communism held then. Halberstam excellently conveys how the head-to-head confrontations transformed the American political landscape causing a dramatic shift from Democratic control to Republican dominance during the decade.
But there are many 'stories' to tell about the 50's - and are told here. An early chapter explains the development of fast food and the 'marketing magic' behind it when discussing the McDonald brothers & Ray Kroc. Other chapters discuss how TV caused a major upheaval change in American culture, effecting virtually every key event or figure during the decade. The use of images and film, mass distribution of information and the editorializing of 'talking heads' on TV instantly changed the ways in which Americans could be influenced - and created the problem of "what's rhetoric - what's truth?"
Interestingly, Halberstam focuses on the 'anti-heroes' of Hollywood during the era like Marlon Brando & James Dean. And he focuses on the vulnerability of Marilyn Monroe instead of her sexuality and mass appeal (both much discussed elsewhere already previously). There's also Levittown, the creation of Holiday Inn, the Quiz Show scandals, the invention of the birth control pill, the racial crisis at Little Rock...and so much more.
The most important point I took away from my reading of this superior book is how the 50's paved the way for the social unrest and cultural disorder that came to a seething head in the 60's. It's critical to anyone's understanding to get a historical perspective of the decade of the 50's to fully comprehend why the changes that happened in the 60's came to be. Halberstam's comprehensive - yet even at 800 pages I'd say concise - The Fifties is a convincing, persuasive and logical account that neatly makes it evident that the changes of the 60's were a natural result of the previous decade.
September 12, 2013
David Halberstam’s reflective THE FIFTIES is a wonderful return to my formative years. I graduated from high school, went to college, got married, and had two children, all in the Fifties. Halberstam caught it all; not my personal story, but the events that occurred and their impact on life during that lively decade.
Halberstam, the noted historian, journalist, and writer who died in a tragic car accident in 2007, remains one of my favorite writers because of his versatility. It’s difficult to put a label on his genre. In his career he published over twenty works that covered history, politics, the Civil Rights movement, media, culture, business, and, in his later years, a broad spectrum of sports. He wrote about the actions of and battles between American generals, media moguls, car industry giants, celebrities, foreign policy decisions, national economic positions, and sports luminaries. He was critical of many things but somehow managed to write about them with tact and almost unassailable logic.
In THE FIFTIES, Halberstam uses the same writing style that was his hallmark. Clear concise accounts are presented on every topic that I recall as happening, as well as many I had forgotten. He recounts generals’ nonmilitary battles, car wars, the beginning of rock and roll and rise of Elvis, the sexual revolution, fast food, mass marketing, brooding movie stars, political favorites and failures, and the genesis of a great American tradition, the televised political debate.
How in the world could he stuff that much information in one book? You’ll have to read it to get the answer. But it’s all there plus more, in Halberstam’s entertaining and conversant style.
He considered the decade to be the foundation of what our nation is today. He believed that although the surface appeared peaceful, almost lethargic, there was an underlying social ferment beginning to roil to the top. Those of us who lived it, enjoyed it, and felt so calm as the 1950s unfolded, tend to push the nasty business of vocal and physical public dissent, with the sidebar of drug proliferation, into the Sixties. Halberstam seems to agree, although he doesn’t give us a free pass. Apparently he thinks of us as parents of such bastard children.
It’s a must read.
Halberstam, the noted historian, journalist, and writer who died in a tragic car accident in 2007, remains one of my favorite writers because of his versatility. It’s difficult to put a label on his genre. In his career he published over twenty works that covered history, politics, the Civil Rights movement, media, culture, business, and, in his later years, a broad spectrum of sports. He wrote about the actions of and battles between American generals, media moguls, car industry giants, celebrities, foreign policy decisions, national economic positions, and sports luminaries. He was critical of many things but somehow managed to write about them with tact and almost unassailable logic.
In THE FIFTIES, Halberstam uses the same writing style that was his hallmark. Clear concise accounts are presented on every topic that I recall as happening, as well as many I had forgotten. He recounts generals’ nonmilitary battles, car wars, the beginning of rock and roll and rise of Elvis, the sexual revolution, fast food, mass marketing, brooding movie stars, political favorites and failures, and the genesis of a great American tradition, the televised political debate.
How in the world could he stuff that much information in one book? You’ll have to read it to get the answer. But it’s all there plus more, in Halberstam’s entertaining and conversant style.
He considered the decade to be the foundation of what our nation is today. He believed that although the surface appeared peaceful, almost lethargic, there was an underlying social ferment beginning to roil to the top. Those of us who lived it, enjoyed it, and felt so calm as the 1950s unfolded, tend to push the nasty business of vocal and physical public dissent, with the sidebar of drug proliferation, into the Sixties. Halberstam seems to agree, although he doesn’t give us a free pass. Apparently he thinks of us as parents of such bastard children.
It’s a must read.
September 8, 2013
I seriously loved this book. I'm not sure how much of that has to do with having come of age in the fifties, but I found Halberstam's narrative to fulfill that secret desire that most of us have to be flies on the wall in the inner sanctums of government and power when and where the decisions are made that affect the course of history. He really does a good job of shining a microscope on all the major events, both cultural and political, that in many ways set the tone of my life and the life of the 20th century right through to the present.
I especially enjoyed his insights into the behind the scenes workings of the Eisenhower administration, and his deconstruction of the man himself. A man both more and less than he has been thought to be (at least by me).
All that we are experiencing now as a culture and a nation is the natural evolution of the decisions and actions that were set in motion in the first decade following WWII. It makes great reading and is totally relevant to today's struggles.
I especially enjoyed his insights into the behind the scenes workings of the Eisenhower administration, and his deconstruction of the man himself. A man both more and less than he has been thought to be (at least by me).
All that we are experiencing now as a culture and a nation is the natural evolution of the decisions and actions that were set in motion in the first decade following WWII. It makes great reading and is totally relevant to today's struggles.
November 21, 2020
"An unreflective panegyric to anything liberal (Margaret Sanger is the best (no mention of her racist eugenics program)! Kinsey! Hefner! Adlai Stevenson!), combined with pedestrian attacks on anyone conservative. Ordinary life is pretty much ignored, except for an awful lot about cars. Blah." - Mr Charles J.
I agree with this review
I agree with this review
December 16, 2017
I knew there would be trouble when the author trashed Republicans a dozen times in the first 10 pages. Hey! Halberstam! Be an actual journalist and leave out the liberal bias. 700 pages is way too much investment to have to put up with his one-sided take on things. DNF.
August 4, 2018
I wasn't born yet, but Halberstam brought the decade alive. Loved this read.
March 2, 2022
I read this phenomenal book because I’ve been rewatching Mad Men, and I wanted some insight into its world. Granted, the show takes place beginning in 1960, I believe, but its ethos and personality are informed by both conformism and the blustery post WWII/post Korea confident swagger of the United States in the 1950s.
Halberstam, as always, is fantastic. I love the organization of this book—a chapter dedicated to each influential person or movement, some longer than others. But you get them all:
U2 spy planes, Marilyn Monroe, desegregating Mississippi and Alabama schools, the rise of TV, debates about the future of the automobile (Chevy muscle or German Beetle), Elvis, McCarthyism, the rise of and revolution in, Cuba, Ike’s post war vision of American suburban life.
There are many other topics covered by Halberstam, all with his deft, authoritative, and well researched approach.
As with many eras of American history, the heart of 1950s tensions still beats.
Halberstam was one of our best, and it was a delight to see history through his eyes.
Halberstam, as always, is fantastic. I love the organization of this book—a chapter dedicated to each influential person or movement, some longer than others. But you get them all:
U2 spy planes, Marilyn Monroe, desegregating Mississippi and Alabama schools, the rise of TV, debates about the future of the automobile (Chevy muscle or German Beetle), Elvis, McCarthyism, the rise of and revolution in, Cuba, Ike’s post war vision of American suburban life.
There are many other topics covered by Halberstam, all with his deft, authoritative, and well researched approach.
As with many eras of American history, the heart of 1950s tensions still beats.
Halberstam was one of our best, and it was a delight to see history through his eyes.
April 12, 2025
This massive book is an exhaustive look at virtually every aspect of the 50s: TV, rock music, McCarthyism, Korea, Marilyn Monroe, Blacks in sports, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Cuba, segregation, etc. It is not an "easy" read as so many events and situations are in as bad or worse shape now than they were 70 years ago. Halberstram has done amazing research and his specifics are impressive but overwhelming. Virtually every topic could have been more concise, imo. I can't say I "liked" this book, but I think it is an important read...especially since the 50s have been glorified and sanitized in our memories as an "easier" and more peaceful time. Nothing could be further from the truth.
March 27, 2025
Damn, lotta shit happened in the 50s
September 24, 2010
Always liked Halberstam's style, makes history real fun reading. Areas I really liked
were the start of the franchises that we take today as just being part of the
woodwork, and often derisively so.
However when McDonalds, Holiday Inn and the like got started there was
a real need for their services, a clean, cheap place to feed the family, and
reliable place to stay. Fascinating how they grew and grew. I recall
going on an Indian Guides field trip when I was a little kid to
McDonalds and they showed us the french fries were always
straight and it was exciting to see when they changed the
sign to the next whatever million sold.
Definitely a book you can pick up again and cherry pick a favorite
subject now and then. Halberstam has his favorites he leans towards
a bit too much in this book and his other writings, but that's just him.
March 5, 2025
This is a very enjoyable, informative book about the post-WWII world I was born into. In fact, I enjoyed it enough that I bought the audiobook to Whispersync with my Kindle edition while I did chores. The only thing I wish Mr. Halberstam had done differently is the chapter headings. He used numbers rather than words so there’s no easy way to find the chapter you’d like to reread.
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