Ever wondered why the 1950s is dubbed as the Fabulous Fifties? Well, The Fabulous Fifties will lay out the best of its years to reinforce the magnificence of their reign. James Foster talks about fifties fashion, trends, lifestyle, and how the people lived their daily lives, but not only on that, the book also comprehensively tackles the finest of fifties music. The music in the 1950s played a big part in the lives of the people, and the book highlights the remarkable music made at this time. Several music personalities as well as their respective songs that made it to the Billboard charts are included and discussed thoroughly. The diversity in music that created harmony in the lives of the people will forever be etched in eternity. The fifties will always be an epitome of grandeur, so be serenaded and read in awe as you relive the beauty of the fifties in The Fabulous Fifties.

As one of the first post-WWII Baby Boomers, Jim Chambers' childhood and early teenage years were in the 1950s, a remarkable decade for the United States that saw enormous political, technological, and cultural changes. Although many books have covered the headline-making events of the era in great detail, few of these books give the reader a real feel for what daily life was like for Americans living in that decade, especially for kids growing up then. The author remembers the little nuts and bolts things of daily life for families during the fascinating decade known as the Fabulous Fifties. "Recollections" perfectly blends paying homage to the little day-to-day rituals with a larger scale examination of social issues and mores of the times, and it's equally entertaining on either level. "Recollections" is a warm, lovingly honest, and fascinating portrait of America in the mid-20th Century.

It is the Fab Fifties, precursor to the Swinging Sixties. Our heroine, a newly-qualified teacher by day, a Soho Boho by night, sets off on the night ferry to France with the Coffee Bar Crowd for a weekend in Paris. Many moons later she is still in Paris, her life dramatically changed by a chance encounter on the rue du Faubourg-St-Honoré. She metamorphoses into a fashion model then a businesswoman, but her real ambition has always been to be an author. Thus her own story is interspersed with her writings as she, and they, develop and mature; pointing up her personal experiences, both blissful and tragic. The book is also an exploration of Friendship in its many and varied forms.

Like all grandfathers Grandpa Gordy loves his grandchildren and he loves to tell them stories. So as a retired sportswriter, when his grandchild asks him about the World Series, Grandpa Gordy is more than willing to share his vast knowledge. When you read this book you'll learn about baseball's great legends like Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Reggie Jackson. You'll marvel at the exploits of the game's unsung heroes like Bill Mazeroski, Edgar Renteria and Chad Curtis. You'll journey as far back as the 1920's when President Coolidge cheered on the "Big Train" Walter Johnson, and up to the 1990's where you'll hear what it was like to share a box seat with Ted Turner and George Steinbrenner. All along you'll delight in Grandpa Gordy's insightful, sometimes hilarious and always entertaining renditions of our national pastime's greatest games.

The Films of Charles and Ray Eames traces the history of the Eameses’ work, examining their evolution away from the design of mass-produced goods and toward projects created as educational experiences. Closely examining how the Eameses described their work reveals how the films and exhibitions they generated were completely at odds with the earlier objectives exemplified in their furniture designs. Shifting away from promoting the consumer-culture, they turned their attention to the presentation of complex sets of scientific, artistic, and philosophical ideas. During a critical period from the late 1950s to the early 1960s there was a moment of introspective self-reflection in the West stemming from the events of the Cold War. This moment of uncertainty was crucial, for it provided the incentive to question the values and concerns of society as a whole. In turn, designers began to question their own sense of purpose, temporarily expanding the purview of design to a broader field of inquiry. In the case of the Eameses, they identified an overriding problem related to consumerism and excess in America and sought to resolve the issue by creating a network of communication between universities, governments, institutions, and corporations. The solution of promoting greater education experiences as an alternative to consumerism in America required that different sectors of society functioned in unison to address political, social, economic, and educational concerns. The Films of Charles and Ray Eames reconsiders how design intersects with humanity, culture, and the sciences.

After the techno-futurism of the 1950s and the utopian 1960s vision of a “great society,” the 1970s saw Americans turning to the past as a source for both nostalgic escapism and serious reflection on the nation’s history. While some popular works like Grease presented the relatively recent past as a more innocent time, far away from the nation’s post-Vietnam, post-Watergate malaise, others like Roots used America’s bicentennial as an occasion for deep soul-searching. Happy Days investigates how 1970s popular culture was obsessed with America’s past but often offered radically different interpretations of the same historical events and icons. Even the figure of the greaser, once an icon of juvenile delinquency, was made family-friendly by Henry Winkler’s Fonzie at the same time that he was being appropriated in more threatening ways by punk and gay subcultures. The cultural historian Benjamin Alpers discovers similar levels of ambivalence toward the past in 1970s neo-noir films, representations of America’s founding, and neo-slave narratives by Alex Haley and Octavia Butler. By exploring how Americans used the 1970s to construct divergent representations of their shared history, he identifies it as a pivotal moment in the nation’s ideological fracturing.

A passionate narrative of individual power, colourful characters, family rivalries, and foreign ownership of Canadas brewing industry.

In this original study, Thompson explores the complicated relationships between Americans and television during the 1950s, as seen and effected through popular humor. Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture documents how Americans grew accustomed to understanding politics, current events, and popular culture through comedy that is simultaneously critical, commercial, and funny. Along with the rapid growth of television in the 1950s, an explosion of satire and parody took place across a wide field of American culture—in magazines, comic books, film, comedy albums, and on television itself. Taken together, these case studies don’t just analyze and theorize the production and consumption of parody and television, but force us to revisit and revise our notions of postwar "consensus" culture as well.

Does heaven exist? If so, what is it like? And how does one get in? Throughout history, painters, poets, philosophers, pastors, and many ordinary people have pondered these questions. Perhaps no other topic captures the popular imagination quite like heaven. Gary Scott Smith examines how Americans from the Puritans to the present have imagined heaven. He argues that whether Americans have perceived heaven as reality or fantasy, as God's home or a human invention, as a source of inspiration and comfort or an opiate that distracts from earthly life, or as a place of worship or a perpetual playground has varied largely according to the spirit of the age. In the colonial era, conceptions of heaven focused primarily on the glory of God. For the Victorians, heaven was a warm, comfortable home where people would live forever with their family and friends. Today, heaven is often less distinctively Christian and more of a celestial entertainment center or a paradise where everyone can reach his full potential. Drawing on an astounding array of sources, including works of art, music, sociology, psychology, folklore, liturgy, sermons, poetry, fiction, jokes, and devotional books, Smith paints a sweeping, provocative portrait of what Americans-from Jonathan Edwards to Mitch Albom-have thought about heaven.