Rating: 
Summary: 50s: Ten Years That Nudged The World
Review: David Halberstam's exhaustive "The Fifties" revealsand clarifies the decade's events and purposes to anyone seeing itthrough the sun-kissed glasses of TV, Broadway, or oldies radio. What seemed to many a peaceful decade lit the fuse for Sixties rage and revolution.Many of the Sixties' major issues and catalysts dress rehearsed the previous decade, and Halberstam dedicates chapters to them. He addresses the sexual and feminist revolutions through detailed studies of the "Kinsey Report," the evolution of birth control, and circumstances leading to the Playboy magazine and Betty Freidan's "Feminist Mystique." The push for civil rights takes its stand in 1954's "Brown" decision, the 1956 bus boycott and, finally, the school desegration at Little Rock, all among the book's most well-written chapters. Halberstam wisely weaves the political stories of the decade throughout the narrative, letting the reader breathe with interesting, more familiar stories from the arts (Tennessee Williams, Ricky Nelson, Marlon Brando, James Dean and, of course, Elvis Presley). It addresses the rise of new types of businesses from the ground-level (Holiday Inn, Korvettes, McDonald's) to the top and beyond. General Motors is coronated with deeply researched chapters on its car design, advertising, and competition before their 50s story ends with the failed Corvair. Heroes and villains switch sides often. Robert Oppenheimer begins as hero whose nuclear research helped win WWII; he ends without job or honor in a Communist-hunting political maelstrom. Joe McCarthy begins as a patriot attacking Communist influence in government, and ends drunken and disgraced. Game show star Charles Van Doren begins as one of TV's first and most admired stars, and ends in obscurity amid one of its most-remembered scandals. Arkansas governor Orval Faubus begins as a centrist bringing blacks more fully into daily life, ending as a model of bigotry and political expediency. Only Dwight Eisenhower, president for most of the 1950s, keeps some of the prestige and honor he entered office with even as his cabinet and government seemed to do some of its finest, also most sinister, work around (sometimes without) him. A recurring theme throughout the book finds new technologies and higher standards of living crashing against traditional, long-held American ideals. The rise of new appliances, housing, cars, places to go, and things to do conflict with people's need for self-expression and creativity, also to work ethic. Much of Halberstam's chapter on "The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit" addresses this conflict; those exploiting it (from publisher Hugh Hefner to scientist Werner von Braun to "Peyton Place" author Grace Metalious) were celebrated then and, to a lesser degree, now. Halberstam leaves much unsaid even after 733 pages and 46 chapters. Nothing about the Dodgers and Giants baseball teams' moves to California, a seismic event in a sport then still America's pastime. Nothing about Frank Sinatra's years at Capitol Records (music generally regarded as art). Nothing about the election of Pope John XXIII, the rise of Billy Graham, or much about any religious figure except Dr. Martin Luther King. (The many anti-Catholic, anti-religious opinions quoted in "The Fifties" may reveal bias on its author's part; I hope not.) Nonetheless, "The Fifties" remains one of the finer historical overviews available about that decade. It tells several related but disparate stories in orderly, compelling fashion, presenting an refreshingly unsentimental look at one of history's most distinctive time periods.
Rating:
Summary: Overwhelming
Review: I am living in Belgium and here we are plunged in a world of stereotypes about the American society. Reading that book has enabled me to have a clearer picture about what was going on in the US at that time. This book is very rich and drives you to read more about all the topics it covers : the creation of the Mc Donald, the civil rights movement, the emergence of publicity on tv, the presidential campaigns, the atomic bomb, the dialogue with Russia, the creation of Holiday Inn, are only a few of them. The information is just overwhelming. I bought three other books by D. Halberstam, I love his style, his ability to mix history and the narrative, it really is an enjoyable experience to read his books. Don't hesitate !
Rating: 
Summary: Very good
Review: People remember the 1950s as a time of peace and prosperity, an idyllic time in American history. Thank goodness for David Halberstam, who shatters the myths of the decade with an intriguing look at everything from Marilyn Monroe to McDonald's to the Cold War. Life in the Fifties was hardly idyllic for poor blacks in the south oppressed by segregation. There was lots of rebellion, lots of discontent. It's all here, but what really impresses the reader is how deeply Halberstam dives into each subject and gets the story- the inner turmoil of America's nuclear program, the efforts of blacks to fight racism in the south, etc. Lovers of history won't be disappointed by David Halberstam's work.
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Summary: History Made Interesting
Review: Although writing nonfiction history in an interesting way is difficult, David Halberstam has succeeded here. The amount of research that he did is obviously overwhelmingly large, and he assembles the facts of the events as they happened in such a way that I felt as though I had indeed lived through the Fifties. I liked how each chapter dealt with a different event; this helped me focus my attention more efficiently and keep some of the names straight. I also liked the selection of topics; they seemed varied and comprehensive. Even though certain political stories do have a slant to them, I feel that the wealth and breadth of knowledge makes this book a valuble read for baby boomers and younger folks alike.
Rating: 
Summary: The Fifties by David Halberstam
Review: I'm sure that my views of a book such as this conflict with other people's mainly because of my age, I'm a junior in high school and we were assigned to read The Fifties. In a short simple review I can describe the book as highly governmental/political and little else to hold your attention. The book is rather long and boring to read because of the sentence structure used constantly throughout. The sentences are constantly broken apart and interrupted by "which he thought", "in fact", and many other annoying thought interruptors that aren't particularlily necessary. The subject matter is specifically what the title implies the decade of the fifties and subject matter mainly deals with government issues but also range from food, cars, and housing to war, elections, and authors of the time. Not all that interesting to a person with my interests. If you're looking for a novel pick up another book because this one follows no story line and is a subject by chapter book. So, if it's action or stories you seek, look elsewhere because this doesn't provide it. Not that this has anything to do with the subject but I recommend Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, it's brilliant.
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Summary: Super ancedotes in the midst of history
Review: Halberstam tells a great story of the fifties and the lead into the sixties via great stories and ancedotes. Easy reading and engrossing. A great history book and fun to read, very insightful as well. Typical Halberstam an editor would be a good idea.
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Summary: Great Insight Into Yesterday's vs. Today's Business World
Review: Given that I was not around for much of The Fifties, I found this book very informative; now I see this book as required reading for any baby boomer. I found the chapters containing the company histories of McDonald's and Chevrolet the most fascinating. How Ray Kroc et al "discovered" the shake/malt mixer for the mass market was wild! An unbelievably simple idea that seems so obvious today -- but at that time it was lauded as pure genius, somewhere between discovering sliced bread, the umbrella, or the elevator. Compare and contrast these details with the recent book "The New New Thing," and you'll see how far we have come.
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Summary: good book, a little slanted
Review: I light history of selected events that took place in the Fifties. The book tended to try break the common memory of the fifties as being a perfect time. That purpose got into the way of some of the stories. The slant was just a little too much for me. Being rather young, I did like hearing about the way things were back then. I wish there was more information on culture and less on politics. The politics can be found in most history books. This book caused much reflection of what I remember about the seventies. I now regard the past in a more objective manner. Good but a little disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Simplistic, heavy-handed, left wing, factually inaccurate.
Review: I thought the movie "Pleasantville" was simplistic and heavy-handed in its treatment of fifties-era conservative values as evil and nineties liberalism as paradisiacal. But this book makes that movie look balanced. The author starts with an amusingly typical leftist retelling of the Hiss case, in which an uninformed reader is likely to incorrectly conclude that Hiss's guilt or innocence is still a historical mystery. The author is too busy delivering broad casual slanders of Whittaker Chambers and the HUAC members to bother with a description of the overwhelming evidence of Hiss's guilt (his ad hominem attacks, in which he fails to explain which member of the HUAC is guilty of which charge, can only be described as McCarthyesque). He also claims Hiss was tried for perjury rather than espionage because of a lack of evidence supporting an espionage claim, when in fact the statute of limitations had run on any espionage claim which could have been supported by Chambers' "pumpkin papers." Apparently, the book's publisher no longer employs a fact-checking department (or a proofreader who knows what a sentence fragment is). After reading that first chapter, what's left is predictable: Halberstam's left wing idols all wear white hats, surprise, everyone who disagrees with his visions are wearing black. Garbage and tripe.
Rating:
Summary: An engrossing overview of an anything-but quiet decade.
Review: David Halberstam has provided the reading public with a highly readable and informative narrative of a decade that both chronologically and curturally gave birth to the last half of the 20th century. The author packs each self-contained chapter with wonderful vignettes,facts,fascinating observations, and biographical sketches that bring his subjects to life. My one disappointment in this book was the author's curious overlooking of the religious landscape of the 50's. One would have thought that figures such as Billy Graham, Fulton Sheen, Norman Vicent Peale, Popes Pius XII and John XXIII, the events leading up to and the calling of the Second Vatican Council as well as the explosive growth of church and synagogue attendance would have warranted a chapter in this otherwise engrossing book.
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