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1959: The Year Everything Changed
by
Fred Kaplan
Acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that "really" changed America
While conventional accounts focus on the sixties as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, Fred Kaplan argues that it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that wou
...moreHardcover, 246 pages
Published
June 15th 2009
by John Wiley & Sons
(first published January 1st 2009)
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Despite its many serious faults, I did like the book. It's simple writing style makes it easy to read. For those of us over 50 it lead to a fun memory trip judging from our discussions; for those under 50 it may be informative about recent history. I'll give it a 3.
Kaplan commits the fallacy of trying to locate the changes which took place in the 60's in a single when there were many changes which took place over a series of years that prepared the way for the 60's. Ka...more
Kaplan commits the fallacy of trying to locate the changes which took place in the 60's in a single when there were many changes which took place over a series of years that prepared the way for the 60's. Ka...more
Since I turned 8 in 1959, I felt like this was a book that put my childhood in historical context. Kaplan argues that the particular gestalt of 1959--well, really, the late 50's and early 60's--was the simultaneous belief in possible annihilation from the recently deployed atomic bomb and the infinite possibilities inspired by space exploration. With chapters on subjects as diverse as Ginsberg and Kerouac; the legal battle over the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover; the early days of the Cu...more
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What happened in 1959? Well, I can think of a few things... Near the peak of world-wide nuclear paranoia, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro each toured the U.S. and received surprisingly friendly receptions. Meanwhile, a group of Eisenhower-dispatched U.S. military advisers were killed outside Saigon. Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue and was beaten-up by police outside a club he was performing at. Ornette Coleman began playing at New York’s Five Spot. And William S. Burroughs began serializing...more
Whenever I read a book that is devoted to a single year, it is so frequently accompanied by the implication that no other year could possibly match it in terms of change that I really don't believe it any longer. There is, in fact a book written about 1969 that uses the exact same tag line as Fred Kaplan's intriguing 1959: The Year Everything Changed.
I mock the drama of implying that the history of the world hinged on a single year - really, it's never that simple. But 1959 was a uni...more
I mock the drama of implying that the history of the world hinged on a single year - really, it's never that simple. But 1959 was a uni...more
Every year could be considered unique in its own way, of course, but after reading this detailed look at the year 1959 (actually the period 1957-1961 or so), it's amazing what a crossroads that period was. From politics, society, race, art and music, to science, electronics & computers, sex and more, we are where we are today because of dramatic changes, innovations and awakenings that happened during this period. For those who like details and linkages between supposedly disparate historical ev...more
Kaplan makes a great, great case for 1959 being the year in which so many pivotal events took place. Castro seized power in Cuba. Ginsberg read "Howl" at Columbia. Berry Gordy started Motown. Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue. Obscenity cases were won in court, ending a ban on mailing materials like Lady Chatterley' Lover. The U.S. Civil Right Commission released its first report on discrimination in America. The MOMA staged a show featuring Rauschenberg and Johns. The Pill was tested ...more
This book accomplished what I always hope for when I open a book, it made me think new thoughts. I have been heard to say that the Greatest Generation saved us from the Nazis and then came home and blew it raising their children - the Boomers - who in turn, raised my generation. This book brought new insight to the why and how this happened. And I have a new sense of gratitude for these pioneers who really looked around and started to ask why things in America functioned like they did and us...more
I chose to read 1959 because that was the year I graduated from high school. Reading it confirmed that I was generally oblivious to the world around me at that time.
The book's 25 chapters are cleverly arranged by date, from January 1 when Castro took power in Cuba to January 1, 1960 when JFK announced he was running for President. Other notable events: the start of Motown, the first use of the word 'aerospace,' the invention of the microchip, the application for FDA approval for the birt...more
The book's 25 chapters are cleverly arranged by date, from January 1 when Castro took power in Cuba to January 1, 1960 when JFK announced he was running for President. Other notable events: the start of Motown, the first use of the word 'aerospace,' the invention of the microchip, the application for FDA approval for the birt...more
This was a pleasant find. Saw it in the return stacks at my local library, thumbed through it expecting to catch a topic or two of interest. Took it home and immediately was hooked. I was a bit skeptical of the title, as we seem to be saturated with "time capsule" books these days (1968: by Mark Kurlansky being but one). Mr Kaplan did a fine job here. The 25 chapters focus on a seminal development or innovation which either occured or became transcendent during 1959. A good example is ...more
1959 saw a remarkable number of significant changes in our daily lives, changes that influenced our lives today. Each chapter in this book--there are 25--tells of one change, discovery, or invention. The book covers politics, art, poetry, music, civil rights, comedy, astronomy, electronics, and on and on.
The chapters aren't that long. There are no superfluous sentences. Kaplan doesn't get too technical with any explanations, but he gives you all that you need to know.
...more
The chapters aren't that long. There are no superfluous sentences. Kaplan doesn't get too technical with any explanations, but he gives you all that you need to know.
...more
Or rather "1959: the year some things important to the author changed." Kaplan is very, very good at describing the changes in arts and culture that happened during his titular year. He does so with compact, knife-sharp thumbnail sketches. In fact he covers everything with these thumbnail sketches (the book feels like a series of magazine articles more than anything else) but when he talks about politics it's somehow less interesting.
In any case his stuff on "Kind of ...more
In any case his stuff on "Kind of ...more
I found this fascinating. Kaplan covers a striking series of events that happened in 1959 (Castro's rise to power; space race takes off; Miles Davis records Kind of Blue; Lenny Bruce goes on national television; Margaret Sanger lobbies successfully for the bith control pill; etc.) and connects those events with each other, with their past roots and with their future consequences. I was enthralled (even as I wondered why my birth was curiously omitted from the world-changing events of that year...more
NOT MY GLASS OF MUSCATEL.
“It was the year of the microchip, the birth-control pill, the space race, and the computer revolution; the rise of Pop art, free jazz, “sick comics,” the New Journalism, and indie films; the emergence of Castro, Malcolm X, and personal superpower diplomacy; the beginnings of Motown, Happenings, and the Generation Gap—all breaking against the backdrop of the Cold War, the fallout-shelter craze, and the first American casualties of the war in Vietnam.”—front-cov...more
“It was the year of the microchip, the birth-control pill, the space race, and the computer revolution; the rise of Pop art, free jazz, “sick comics,” the New Journalism, and indie films; the emergence of Castro, Malcolm X, and personal superpower diplomacy; the beginnings of Motown, Happenings, and the Generation Gap—all breaking against the backdrop of the Cold War, the fallout-shelter craze, and the first American casualties of the war in Vietnam.”—front-cov...more
I asked my mother (you know who you are)...1959 really wasn't the year everything changed. But, like so many college students (even then!), she was oblivious to contemporary events at that time, so I needed to read this book to see if she was indeed right.
However, the author sets up 1959 and the late 50s in general as the set up years for the 60s movement. Movements never come in nice neat decade-long packages. The reality is that the 50s lasted through 1963, the 1960s through 197...more
However, the author sets up 1959 and the late 50s in general as the set up years for the 60s movement. Movements never come in nice neat decade-long packages. The reality is that the 50s lasted through 1963, the 1960s through 197...more
1959 -- a lot happened during this year and while the author could have just listed the things that happened and provided a brief explanation of each item, Fred Kaplan went in a different direction.
He talks about each occurrence and then provides a detailed history that surrounds these events. For some things, such as the birth control pill, 1959 was a sort of culmination of years of work by Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood) and her contemporaries.
For o...more
He talks about each occurrence and then provides a detailed history that surrounds these events. For some things, such as the birth control pill, 1959 was a sort of culmination of years of work by Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood) and her contemporaries.
For o...more
Major events that affect change in a society are not spontaneous but have occurred because of small, seemingly insignificant occurrences that build together to create what most people actually see. Most of the premise of the book, "1959, The Year That Changed Everything" is a collection of stories about these small events that would lead to what many think is the most defining decade of sociological change for the US, the 1960's. From the Beat generation writers, the new musicians li...more
This is another book that had potential to be good but just didn't work for me. I had a hard time reading it and kept having to put it aside for a while. Some of the material was quite interesting, but his writing style just didn't work for me and I had a hard time believing some of his arguments. More than anything, the book felt really uneven, with some chapters obviously displaying a greater depth of understanding than others.
"1959" has some interesting stories about events about that time, but it's a little highbrow for some (plenty about poetry, art and jazz). It also has the feeling of trying to justify the title. Still, the premise -- that there was plenty going on in the so-called quiet 50's -- is a reasonable one. I like David Halberstam's book on the decade better, but this is a reasonablye interesting read.
Very interesting. I didn't see all the threads of change in the 1960s going back this far. Kaplan did a good job of tying things together. I think he might overstep logic a bit to make his point and tries to confine thins that didn't get big, important or even fully fledged by the originator till years later but it does a great job of realigning how we think about the last 50 years of change.
This is a very competent, lively book. And the way it fits into my life means I give it a 4 rather than perhaps a 3. I was in the 6th-7th grade in 1959. I remember some of the events of the book. Most I don't. But my life was shaped by these events. The beginnings of so much that we think of in the 60s and 70s. I recommend this book. (Listened on Audible.)
I enjoyed the book on the whole, but I thought Mr. Kaplan overstretched the importance of 1959. He would say while "x" occured in 1959, it was only because a more important event happened two years earlier. But I learned a lot of small things that happened in that year, including a lot of jazz history.
Yes, the year I was born everything changed. I learned so much reading this book, about innovations in art, architecture, photography, the development of the birth control pill, segregation, censorship, The Cold War, Castro. Really interesting how all the seeds of the Sixties were planted in the final year of the Fifties.
Disappointing review of my junior year in high school. I didn't know that only in New York City did real things happen. The great amount of time spent on jazz was interesting but by the time Ornette Coleman came along no one was listening to jazz anyway, especially the "free" jazz of Coleman's.
Margaret Sankey
added it
The election of Kennedy and the race for the "New Frontier," jazz, birth control pills, Norman Mailer, the Guggenheim Museum, semi-conductors and transistor radios, Lenny Bruce, visiting Russians and Malcolm X. More culturally inclined than the volume on 1969
G. Hilgemeier
added it
A fast summary of the start of our current age. He tries too hard to shove some things into 1959 that really happened before or after but does catch the flavor change from the bland gray flannel 50s to the psychedelic 60s.
As 2009 marked my half-century year, I was drawn to this book to find out what else was happening in the year I was born. I already knew about Alaska and Hawaii becoming states, Barbie's appearance on the scene (these were not mentioned), deaths of Billie Holiday and Buddy Holly. This book shed light on some stuff I did not know. The author argues that various forces went to work that year to change our culture--and it amounted to a quantum change (my words, not his) that set a bunch of othe...more
I admire Kaplan as a writer and critic, but this is simply a gloss of events/trends/persons organized by that most facile and meaningless of themes, a single calendar year. Still, the jazz bits are, obviously, the best.
Like a lot of these books that I get from the library after hearing the author discuss it on NPR, I feel like it would've been a great New Yorker article, but the book felt too long. Interesting though.
Loved how it touched on every cultural aspect of the year (politics, music, books, art, etc.), but the profiles didn't weave together like I had hoped. Still a very interesting read.
Loved this book! Every chapter presses on a different topic of that year which makes for a quick but very informative read. Learned a lot!
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