1st Edition

Bad Old Days The Myth of the 1950s

By Alan J. Levine Copyright 2008
179 Pages
by Routledge

186 Pages
by Routledge

186 Pages
by Routledge

For many, especially those on the political left, the 1950s are the "bad old days." The widely accepted list of what was allegedly wrong with that decade includes the Cold War, McCarthyism, racial segregation, self-satisfied prosperity, and empty materialism. The failings are coupled with ignoring poverty and other social problems, complacency, conformity, the suppression of women, and... Read more

1. The Myth and the Problem
2. The Post-World War II Era: Its Characteristics, Achievements, and Problems
3. Race: The Great American Obsession
4. The Myth of McCarthyism
5. Prosperity and Poverty in the Postwar Era
6. Men and Women
7. Conformity, the "Silent Generation," Liberalism, and Social Criticism
8. Postwar Culture
9. Seeds of Disintegration?
10. Post-Sputnik "Declinism"
11. Those Suburbs Suburbia, Disturbia, and the Slurbs
12. Cars: Getting Around, Gorp, and the "Vaginal Look"
13. The Economy and Industry in the Postwar Era
Index

Biography

Alan J. Levine