The author has a good command of the variety of cultural forms in the period and has planned the shape and contents of the book thoughtfully.
- Professor Lucy Maddox, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.,
The author has a good command of the variety of cultural forms in the period and has planned the shape and contents of the book thoughtfully.
- Professor Lucy Maddox, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.,
The 1950s has been transformed in the scholarly literature from a "tranquillized" decade to an almost "tumultuous" one, and therefore is badly in need of a restorative balance. This is the achievement of Martin Halliwell's superb account of a postwar period that, for all of its familiarity, remains tantalizingly elusive. By showing the persistence of the varieties of cultural modernism, he advances the retrospective understanding of a decade that was not merely the lengthened shadow of the Cold War. His book is thoughtful, expansive and engaging.
- Stephen J. Whitfield, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis University, Massachusetts,