Review

Textbooks, Readers, and References

As is noted in the preface, this work is not intended to be a conventional narrative account of the United States during and immediately after the Second World War. It is rather, as the author explains, a series of "connected essays" designed to provoke questions about the American experience during this period. Kaledin, who describes herself as "a social critic of United States culture" rather than a historian, asserts that American life underwent fundamental transformations between 1940 and 1959, two decades that she describes as differing as greatly as do the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. In an effort to more fully explore the depth and magnitude of the changes occurring, she addresses a broad range of "daily experiences" with the intent of encouraging speculation rather than providing definitive answers. The themes that pervade the book are equally broad, perhaps the most persistent and recurring one being that of how Americans defined "the good life" during this period. The author's professed intention is to awaken the intellectual curiosity of readers who, she hopes, might at least temporarily forsake the contemporary obsession with the Internet in favor of exploring the print resources at the local library. Doubtless many others besides this reviewer would heartily support this objective.	1
The first part of this book is devoted to five brief chapters that span the 1940s, with considerable attention to the impact of the depression and the Second World War on American lifestyles, attitudes and values. The author's general intent here is to demonstrate how the "old-fashioned world of the 1940s" was rapidly giving way in the face of both economic and wartime exigencies, which did much to erode traditional attitudes about such subjects as race and women's roles in society and the workplace. An admirable chapter on how film defined wartime America stands out in this section. Other chapters effectively illustrate how science and technology had transformed the lives of Americans as of the late 1940s, allowing for a redefinition of the "good life". Part II of the book is devoted to an examination of the 1950s, by which point, according to the author's thesis, the foundations of "modern" postwar America were firmly established. The first chapter in this section focuses on the Red Scare and its consequences, while the subsequent "essay' focuses on the increasingly dynamic civil rights movement, the status of women, changing sexual mores, family and religion. Other major topics covered in this portion of the book are the Cold War and the consumer, the impact of television and the literary culture of the 1950s.	2
Because this book is not a traditional history of the era, some readers may find the style and organization somewhat idiosyncratic, but the author generally succeeds in her stated purpose. Using primarily secondary sources, Kaledin provides an informed and often entertaining discussion of many of the major issues of the period, often following the ongoing historiographical debate so as to provide an inclusive perspective. In her examination of the impact of the atomic bomb, for example, she pursues the Hiroshima/Nagasaki controversy into the 1990s. In a conventional text, this approach might be considered digressive, but it seems to work here. There is much to commend this book to those who desire a thought-provoking work that devotes far more than the usual amount of attention to social, cultural and even literary topics. Extensive and thoughtful discussions of the impact of film and television on American life add much to this book, as does a laudable examination of popular culture and a well-presented overview of the socio-cultural debate of the 1950s. The author's reexamination of the literature of that decade leads her to conclude that, despite prevailing characterizations of the 1950s as a decade dominated by conformity and consumerism, American intellectual life was unusually vibrant. The book is not strong on political history, but offers enough information to provide a general context. This text has several apparent applications, most obviously in courses on recent American studies or, as some would have it, American civilization. It might also serve as a useful supplement in course on post-1945 America. The level of the text is such that it would also likely be useful for advanced or honors students in high school courses on contemporary United States history.	3
Blaine T. Browne Broward Community College,Coconut Creek, Florida

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