In this book, Eleonora Ravizza analyzes how contemporary American popular culture has represented and reproduced the fifties. By investigating the cultural work of films and TV series from the last two decades, the book uncovers the inherent limitations of a ‘revisionist’ take on the fifties. Ravizza argues that, due to the visual nature of the fifties—crystallized in American consciousness through the widespread influence of television—most contemporary attempts to rework and rewrite the regressive gender, queer, and racial politics fall short of such a revisionist reevaluation. ​

How can one begin a worthwhile story without the immortal words Once upon a Time? My Once upon a Time is set in the 1940s and fabulous '50s, a time where our world was being redefined by a post-war economic boom, all the while remaining true to the universal and unchanging plights and endeavors of humanity that will forever remain untouched by the passage of generations. It is a story of my boyhood in Thomas, Oklahoma, from my earliest childhood memories all the way through high school graduation. And like my world at the time, my story both uniquely defines me and simultaneously reflects my mere commonality to all mankind. Shelley's poem -Ozymandias- implies that everyone and everything will ultimately be forgotten: -Nothing beside remains . . .- It is this espousal that should compel those of us who have stories to tell, and each of us does, to write them down, to pen them into timeless monuments to the past and heralds to the future before they escape into the mists of history. As we age, our treasured memories age with us . . . evolving into greater and greater historical and personal significance, but fading and calcifying as time marches on. Napoleon said that geography is destiny. I hope you'll find within these pages that mine was a blessed destiny . . . one each of us can find some relic to share in and relate to as I recount endearing times at home with my family, adventures with my brothers, and infamous school day escapades with my classmates who helped carry the 40s and 50s into the memories of our hearts.

People Apart: 1950s Cape Town Revisited offers a rich and fascinating insight into South Africa at the brink of the apartheid through Bryan Heseltine's previously unpublished photography of the 1940s and 50s. The photographs offer a unique glimpse into the lives of South Africans who would feel the full force of apartheid through the 1950s and beyond, showing some of the dreadful housing conditions that existed on the periphery of the city, but also testifying to the vibrancy of social and cultural life, including the work of street craftsmen, beer brewing, music and dance. People Apart offers an intimate insight into the diverse styles and identities of Cape Town's inhabitants during this period, both through intimate portraits as well as unique documentations of the shack dwellings, which dominated the urban landscape. The collection also significantly demonstrates an early attempt to find a visual language with which to represent apartheid South Africa to a British Public. Author Darren Newbury contextualizes Heseltine's photographs through extensive biographical, and socio-historical research and views this body of work both within its contemporary context as well as asking what these images offer today, in the post-apartheid era. Contributions from Vivian Bickford-Smith and Sean Field probe questions such as the nature of memory and identity, as well as the place of photography in the documentation and the active 'making' of history.

The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the ten years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon, but also of Harley Earl, who put fins on cars; Dick and Mac McDonald and Ray Kroc, who mass-produced the American hamburger; Kemmons Wilson, who placed his Holiday Inns along the nation's roadsides; U-2 pilot Gary Francis Powers; Grace Metalious, who wrote Peyton Place; and "Goody" Pincus, who led the team that invented the Pill. A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The Future Revisited examines Hollywood adaptations of Jules Verne stories and is an interdisciplinary study that offers a fresh perspective on film history, French literature, science fiction and America in the 1950s. It is a fascinating and authoritative account of how the stories of Jules Verne, a distinguished French novelist better known around the world as the father of science fiction and an accurate predictor of much of the twentieth century, found particular resonance with US filmmakers in the 1950s. Schiltz looks at four of the most popular films - Around the World in 80 Days, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Mysterious Island - and argues that there were many parallels between Verne's technological adventures and postwar America, with its themeparks, shopping malls, Levittowns and plethora of consumer goods. Just as nineteenth-century readers of Verne's books could experience travel from the comfort of their seats, viewers of these films could be swept away on an imaginary flight, a voyage in a submarine, or a trek to the earth’s core, all in spectacular widescreen and with ground-breaking special effects. Yet the pleasures offered were ambivalent: encounters with exotic places and cultures might have led the audience to question common assumptions such as gender roles; seeing futuristic domestic spaces could highlight the confusion of attitudes to private and public life in suburbia, and the films’ blending of nostalgia and progress might draw attention to society’s tug-of-war between innovation and conformity.