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Summary: The 90's -- Reprise of the 50's
Review: This is the second of Halberstam's books that I've read. After reading The Children, I decided that he was an author whose work was going to be well worth my time. Having entered the fifties a teenager, but missing most of the last of the decade because I was out of the country and out of touch much of the time from Jan, 1955 to Jan, 1959 because of service in the US Navy, Halberstam's reprise of the late 40s and 50s was tremendously interesting to me. It is especially interesting to note that the Republican Party's obcessions - domestic communism in the 50s and Bill Clinton's sins in the 90s - still do the country great disservice while advancing the cause of freedom and social justice not at all. Halberstam's view that the advent of network television and the camera's coverage of news events, of that which had once been almost the exclusive province of print journalism, changed America's perception of the world and itself. I agree with that as far as it goes. However, "news" coverage as practiced in the 90s and today has little in common with news coverage in the 50s. One wonders, looking at what passes for "news" programs today, where the giants of yeasteryear have gone. Like the wonderful engineers who ruled at General Motors early in the decade, they have been replaced by the "money men" who came to rule GM in the late 50s and to rule television today, whose only interest is in the bottom line, the public interest be damned. The "blandness" of the 50s as viewed by the images of that decade transmitted primarily by the network programing other than news programing from that era, is more than belied by Halberstam's extensive discriptions of the social, political and personal turmoil of a decade when supposedly nothing much happened. As a teenager, I recall the cold terror that an unexpected flash of light on the horizon could elicit. Was it going to be followed by the terrible mushroom cloud which we were all conditioned to expect at any moment? Was there to be a reality check on the "duck and cover" routine practiced by school children, ostensibly developed to ward off the truly devastating effects of the ten megaton Soviet superweapons delivered by one of the missiles with which the USSR was rumored to have "gapped" us? And I recall the anger I felt as a displaced Arkie, far from home in the fall of 1957, and the winter and spring 1958, hearng about the crisis at Central High and reading the graffitti that covered the walls and flat surfaces of the Far East where ever our ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet landed - "What about Little Rock?" and "Yankee, go home!" Because of my Arkansas background, I saw and shared the anger, hurt and humiliation of my black shipmates at those signs as they realized that while they were supposedly protecting freedom around the world, at home their little brothers and sisters, children, parents and grandparents were treated, not so much like second class citizens as like another grossly inferior species with no feelings and few rights. Halberstam describes and analyses it all, the warts and the beauties, the amazing successes and the abominal failures of the "quiet" decade. Each decade should be so lucky as to have an biographer of Halberstam's stature. wfh
Rating: 
Summary: What The Fuss Was All About
Review: If - for whatever reason - you weren't on Planet Earth in the 1950s, this is an excellent primer. Pundits, pop theorists and assorted other epsilon semi-morons routinely invoke the 50s as an Eden of social stablility; a paradise lost; a Womb To Which We Must Return. In fact, despite the TV images to the contrary, it was a bustling time of exponential social change. My favorite vignette is the invention of the Pill, with conservatives warning this would bring on the Age of the Amazons, with women supreme and men only serving as pleasant diversions.
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Summary: not his best, indeed, perhaps his worst
Review: Halberstam tells a good story, and he does so in this book about the 1950s. Unfortunately, in this book he is content to spout back the conventional wisdom rather than do any new reporting. So what you get is a vivid re-telling of things already known, with his usual depth thrown in. If this is his worst, it is still very good. Halberstam is one of our truly great writers. It is a solid introduction to a formative decade. Recommended.
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Summary: An Inspiring Look at the Best and Worst of a Special Time
Review: In "The Fifties", David Halberstam covers a huge range of political, historical and cultural events that defined this pivotal decade. The Korean War, the development of the H-Bomb, the rise of Castro and Kruschev, the violent reactions to the end of racism in America, the fiasco of the U-2 spy plane over Russia is explained and analyzed alongside the rise of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Nixon, Television, Levittown, MacDonald's, Holiday Inn, and even the great game show fraud on "Twenty One". The events are integrated with a thorough look into the biographies of the people at the center of the events. An element of hindsight in such a recent historical era may incline biases; but they are largely absent. There is no underlying theme carrying through the narrations; just a look at some of the amazing developments. Halberstam writes with genuine interest and leaves us with a picture that is a joy and a real education. He is masterful covering such a range of events yet is able to include significant detail of the people and the events, giving you a perspective absent the social or media biases of the era.
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Summary: A fascinating time dissected by a skilled author
Review: David Halberstram actually contributed a catchphrase to the vernacular, "the best and the brightest," which he used as the title of another book. Not surprisingly for a Pulitzer Prize winner, THE FIFTIES is gracefully written. Not surprising for a man of author Halberstram's reputation, the scholarship displayed is admirable, both in its breadth and in its depth. Any reader with a curiosity about this fascinating decade will finish the book far better informed than at the start. If there is one flaw, it's that the subject is plumbed so comprehensively that just reading this work can, at times, become overwhelming. When it comes to writing, Halberstram is the best and the brightest!
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Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable!
Review: This just might be the best piece of popular history writing around. History books are too often stories of great subjects covered by people who just can't write. Halberstam is a great storyteller, and really brings the decade to life. Deeply engrossing, the book reads like a novel. This is one book I keep lending to friends.
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Summary: A Decade to Remember
Review: What a book! Halberstam does a great job bringing a decade, thought by many to be quite boring, alive. He states that the 50's were the beginning of social upheaval and then he proves it very well. Don't let the size of the book intimidate you, it is an easy read. Once you begin you will be caught up in the era and not want to stop. As a young person who did not know much about the 50's, I have since become enthralled with the decade due in large part to the great writing of Halberstam. I would suggest this book to anyone with a love for both social and political history.
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Summary: A great book, but one complaint
Review: This is a terrific book - one of my favorites. I echo all the previous comments about Halberstam making history readable. I zipped through the 700+ pages in no time, and I'm sure I'll the book many times over. My only complaint is that he never steps back and views the times as a whole. The book is full of marvelous individual stories about what happened during the 50's, but it never decribes the overall mood of the times. It reminds me of the story about 7 blind men desribing an elephant. Each one investigates a different part (tail, leg, etc) and each winds up with a completely different description of what an elephant looks like, with no one being right. I wish Halberstam had added 2-3 chapters (maybe at the beginning, middle, and end of the decade) to step back and talk about the overall mood. If you didn't know anything about the 50's prior to reading this book, you'd never have any idea it was known as a time of conformity.
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Summary: A Wonderful Overview of an Underappreciated Decade
Review: I first encountered a healthy dose of David Halberstam's prose while in graduate school in the early 1970s when I read the "Best and the Brightest", and I have read a number of his books since. His approach is appealing here, doling out a dollop of contemporary history along with goodly portions of personal character investigation, celebrity coverage, and cultural commentary. Somehow, regardless of the particular subject, his unique and somewhat unorthodox approach seems to work quite well. Here he focuses on what he argues is a pivotal decade in explaining what it is we Americans have become in the half-century Since World War Two. It was in the depths of the seemingly placid fifties that many of the changes to modern society first appeared, from the introduction of mass-produced televisions to the Kefauver congressional hearings, from the gyrating pulses of rock & roll and the controversial and provocative antics of Elvis Presley to the painful and dramatic beginnings of the civil rights movement, it is all here portrayed lovingly, accurately, and with sustained good humor. Halberstam excels at mixing complex subjects with interesting personalities, showing how individuals in the act of being who they are influences the course of events, trends and the course of history. He masterfully guides us through the ways in which the country began to emerge from the shadowy constraints and privations of the wartime years to a new, brighter and more affluent material future with the burgeoning boom of the fifties, chronicling a plethora of ways in which this massive cultural change in circumstances and material means influenced the society itself. It was a time of superficial numbing conformity for many while a time of startling experimentation for others, like the Beats. And everywhere, things seemed to be rapidly changing, from tastes in food, music and entertainment to ways in which people became educated and found useful employment. Underneath the surface of all this conformity and innovation was a pulsing impetus to change, a curious openness to novelty and difference, to a more abundant and material definition of the good life for the average American. Yet there was also some ugly and negative aspects to the subterranean impulse of American society in the fifties, from Joe McCarthy to the race riots in the South, from our hysterical preoccupation with the "red menace" to our own social intolerances, and the author places these in the context of a decade caught in the divergent currents of two quite oppositional streams of change; from a more monolithic mainstream conservativism to a more open-minded and pluralistic social liberalism on the one hand, and from a small-town and family-oriented orientation to a much more individualistic and urban scheme of existence. This is a wonderful book, one providing an excellent panoramic perspective of a decade that saw the withering away of the old and more simple America of the first half century to one becoming more progressive, more affluent, and much more pluralistic and open to change. While those of us reading these things may not embrace the notion that most of this is necessarily for the betterment of society or the ultimate progress of mankind, it is hard to quibble with such an eloquent, articulate, and entertaining portrait of America in transition. I highly recommend this book, and hope it is even more widely read. Enjoy!
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Summary: A GREAT INSIGHT FOR ANYONE WHO DIDN'T LIVE IN THE 50'S
Review: I learned so much about the decade of the 50's in this book! Everyone knows a lot about the 1960's, but the 50's also have some great stories to tell. From politics, McDonald's, and Korea to the beginning of TV, Halberstam covers it all. If you like non-fiction, this is a good one.
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