Good morning, Today, after having gone through books of the decades over the past nine weeks, I thought I’d consider books written about each decade and its seminal events. Every decade, some more than others, is evocative of a time or historical trend. The Thirties and the despair of Depression, the Forties of the war and post-war, existential in its threats of fascism, communism and a possibly dystopian future, the Fifties of the “beat generation,” the massive post-war economic expansion, Levittown, and an imagined suburban bliss, all under the cloud of thermonuclear annihilation. This all led to Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement and the failure of trusted institutions in the Sixties, the Seventies trying to echo back to the carefree Fifties and the excesses, and “greed is good” of the Eighties, the relative calm and American dominance of the Nineties and the September 11 attacks and their aftermath in the aughts.
#370 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday June 6)
#370 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday June…
#370 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday June 6)
Good morning, Today, after having gone through books of the decades over the past nine weeks, I thought I’d consider books written about each decade and its seminal events. Every decade, some more than others, is evocative of a time or historical trend. The Thirties and the despair of Depression, the Forties of the war and post-war, existential in its threats of fascism, communism and a possibly dystopian future, the Fifties of the “beat generation,” the massive post-war economic expansion, Levittown, and an imagined suburban bliss, all under the cloud of thermonuclear annihilation. This all led to Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement and the failure of trusted institutions in the Sixties, the Seventies trying to echo back to the carefree Fifties and the excesses, and “greed is good” of the Eighties, the relative calm and American dominance of the Nineties and the September 11 attacks and their aftermath in the aughts.