Download or read book The Great Boom 1950 2000 written by Robert Sobel and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Great Boom, historian Robert Sobel tells the fascinating story of the last 50 years when American entrepreneurs, visionaries, and ordinary citizens transformed our depression and war-exhausted society into today's economic powerhouse. As America's G.I.s returned home from World War II, many of the nation's best minds predicted a new depression—yet exactly the opposite occurred. Jobs were plentiful in retooled factories swamped with orders from pent-up demand. Tens of thousands of families moved out of cities into affordable suburban homes built by William Levitt and his imitators. They bought cars, televisions, and air conditioners by the millions. And they took to the nation's roads and new interstate highways—the largest public works project in world history—where Kemmons Wilson of Holiday Inns, Ray Kroc of McDonalds, and other start-up entrepreneurs soon catered to a mobile populace with food and lodgings for leisure time vacationers. Americans and their families began to channel savings into new opportunities. Credit cards democratized purchasing power, while early mutual funds found growing numbers of investors to fuel the first postwar bull market in the go-go '60s. At the same time the continuing boom enriched the fabric of social and cultural life. A college education became a must on the highway to upward mobility; high-tech industries arose with astonishing new ways of conducting business electronically; and an unprecedented 49 million families had become investors when the 1981-2000 stock market boom reached 10,000 on the Dow. The Great Boom is the first major book to portray the great wave of homegrown entrepreneurs as post-war heroes in the complete remaking and revitalizing of America. All that, plus the creation of unprecedented wealth—or themselves, for the nation, for tens of millions of citizens—all in five short drama-filled decades.
Download or read book The Age of Eisenhower written by William I. Hitchcock and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 895 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling biography: a “complete and powerful assessment” of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency (Booklist, starred review). Drawing on newly declassified documents and thousands of pages of unpublished material, The Age of Eisenhower tells the story of a masterful president guiding the nation through the great crises of the 1950s, from McCarthyism and the Korean War through civil rights turmoil and Cold War conflicts. This is a portrait of a skilled leader who, despite his conservative inclinations, found a middle path through the bitter partisanship of his era. At home, Eisenhower affirmed the central elements of the New Deal, such as Social Security; fought the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy; and advanced the agenda of civil rights for African-Americans. Abroad, he ended the Korean War and avoided a new quagmire in Vietnam. Yet he also charted a significant expansion of America’s missile technology and deployed a vast array of covert operations around the world to confront the challenge of communism. As he left office, he cautioned Americans to remain alert to the dangers of a powerful military-industrial complex that could threaten their liberties. Today, presidential historians rank Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, and William Hitchcock’s “rich narrative” shows us why Ike’s stock has risen so high. He was a gifted leader, a decent man of humble origins who used his powers to advance the welfare of all Americans (The Wall Street Journal).
Download or read book The World Life and Travel 1950 2000 written by Jan Morris and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2005-04-17 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The travel book of the season."—Craig Seligman, New York Times Book Review The first book to distill Jan Morris's entire body of work into one volume, The World is a magnum opus by the most-celebrated travel writer in the world. To read it is to take an epic armchair journey through the last half of twentieth-century history. A breathtakingly vivid guide to our greatest cosmopolitan cities and cultures from Manhattan to Venice and from Baghdad to Barbados, this book assembles fifty years of Morris's finest travel writing. With eyewitness accounts of such seminal moments as the first successful ascent of Everest, the Eichmann trial, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the handover of Hong Kong, The World promises to create an entirely new generation of Jan Morris readers. A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2003.
Download or read book The Global Transformation of Time written by Vanessa Ogle and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As new networks of railways, steamships, and telegraph communications brought distant places into unprecedented proximity, previously minor discrepancies in local time-telling became a global problem. Vanessa Ogle’s chronicle of the struggle to standardize clock times and calendars from 1870 to 1950 highlights the many hurdles that proponents of uniformity faced in establishing international standards. Time played a foundational role in nineteenth-century globalization. Growing interconnectedness prompted contemporaries to reflect on the annihilation of space and distance and to develop a global consciousness. Time—historical, evolutionary, religious, social, and legal—provided a basis for comparing the world’s nations and societies, and it established hierarchies that separated “advanced” from “backward” peoples in an age when such distinctions underwrote European imperialism. Debates and disagreements on the varieties of time drew in a wide array of observers: German government officials, British social reformers, colonial administrators, Indian nationalists, Arab reformers, Muslim scholars, and League of Nations bureaucrats. Such exchanges often heightened national and regional disparities. The standardization of clock times therefore remained incomplete as late as the 1940s, and the sought-after unification of calendars never came to pass. The Global Transformation of Time reveals how globalization was less a relentlessly homogenizing force than a slow and uneven process of adoption and adaptation that often accentuated national differences.
Download or read book The World of 1950 written by Will Roth and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Feminine Mystique written by Betty Friedan and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This novel was the major inspiration for the Women's Movement and continues to be a powerful and illuminating analysis of the position of women in Western society___
Download or read book Tyranny of the Weak written by Charles K. Armstrong and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To much of the world, North Korea is an impenetrable mystery, its inner workings unknown and its actions toward the outside unpredictable and frequently provocative. Tyranny of the Weak reveals for the first time the motivations, processes, and effects of North Korea’s foreign relations during the Cold War era. Drawing on extensive research in the archives of North Korea’s present and former communist allies, including the Soviet Union, China, and East Germany, Charles K. Armstrong tells in vivid detail how North Korea managed its alliances with fellow communist states, maintained a precarious independence in the Sino-Soviet split, attempted to reach out to the capitalist West and present itself as a model for Third World development, and confronted and engaged with its archenemies, the United States and South Korea. From the invasion that set off the Korean War in June 1950 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tyranny of the Weak shows how—despite its objective weakness—North Korea has managed for much of its history to deal with the outside world to its maximum advantage. Insisting on a path of "self-reliance" since the 1950s, North Korea has continually resisted pressure to change from enemies and allies alike. A worldview formed in the crucible of the Korean War and Cold War still maintains a powerful hold on North Korea in the twenty-first century, and understanding those historical forces is as urgent today as it was sixty years ago.
Download or read book Heirs to World Culture written by M.H.T. Sutedja-LIem and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together new scholarship by Indonesian and non-Indonesian scholars on Indonesia’s cultural history from 1950-1965. During the new nation’s first decade and a half, Indonesia’s links with the world and its sense of nationhood were vigorously negotiated on the cultural front. Indonesia used cultural networks of the time, including those of the Cold War, to announce itself on the world stage. International links, post-colonial aspirations and nationalistic fervour interacted to produce a thriving cultural and intellectual life at home. Essays discuss the exchange of artists, intellectuals, writing and ideas between Indonesia and various countries; the development of cultural networks; and ways these networks interacted with and influenced cultural expression and discourse in Indonesia. With contributions by Keith Foulcher, Liesbeth Dolk, Hairus Salim HS, Tony Day, Budiawan, Maya H.T. Liem, Jennifer Lindsay, Els Bogaerts, Melani Budianta, Choirotun Chisaan, I Nyoman Darma Putra, Barbara Hatley, Marije Plomp, Irawati Durban Ardjo, Rhoma Dwi Aria Yuliantri and Michael Bodden.
Download or read book The World of Ham Radio 1901 1950 written by Richard A. Bartlett and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the first fifty years of the twentieth century, ham radio went from being an experiment to virtually an art form. Because of the few government restrictions and the low monetary investment required, the concept of ham radio appealed to various people. More than just a simple hobby, however, ham radio required its operators to understand radio theory, be able to trace a schematic and know how to build a transmitter and receiver with whatever material they might have available. With the advent of World War II and the increased need for cutting-edge communications, the United States government drew upon the knowledge and skill of these amateur ham radio operators. This book explores the history of ham radio operators, emphasizing their social history and their many contributions to the technological development of worldwide communications. It traces the concept of relays, including the American Radio Relay League, from contacts as close as 25 miles apart to operators anywhere in the world. The book highlights the part played by ham radio in many of the headline events of the half century, especially exploration and aviation "firsts". The ways in which these primarily amateur operators assisted in times of disaster including such events as the sinking of the Titanic and the 1937 Ohio River flood, are also examined.
Download or read book The Fifties written by Douglas T. Miller and published by VNR AG. This book was released on 1977 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys the social, cultural, and political history of the United States during the decade of the 1950's.
Download or read book The Geographical Imagination in America 1880 1950 written by Susan Schulten and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-04 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Schulten examines four enduring institutions of learning that produced some of the most influential sources of geographic knowledge in modern history: maps and atlases, the National Geographic Society, the American university, and public schools."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Intelligence Community 1950 1955 written by Douglas Keane and published by Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the Historian. This book was released on 2008-02 with total page 880 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the institutional growth of the intelligence community under Directors Walter Bedell Smith and Allen W. Dulles, and demonstrates how Smith, through his prestige, ability to obtain national security directives from a supportive President Truman, and bureaucratic acumen, truly transformed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Download or read book Democracy and Development written by Adam Przeworski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-28 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines impact of political regimes on economic development between 1950 and 1990.
Download or read book Daily Life in 1950s America written by Nancy Hendricks and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-02-22 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Placing the era firmly within the American experience, this reference illuminates what daily life was really like in the 1950s, including for people from the "Other America"—those outside the prosperous, white middle class. 'Daily Life in 1950s America shows that the era was anything but uneventful. Apart from revolutionary changes during the decade itself, it was in the 1950s that the seeds took root for the social turmoil of the 1960s and the technological world of today. The book's interdisciplinary format looks at the domestic, economic, intellectual, material, political, recreational, and religious life of average Americans. Readers can look at sections separately according to their interests or classroom assignment, or can read them as an ongoing narrative. By entering the homes of average Americans, far from the corridors of power, we can make sense of the 1950s and see how the headlines of the era translated into their daily lives. This readable and informative book is ideal for anyone interested in this formative decade in American life. Well-researched factual material is presented in an engaging way, along with lively sidebars to humanize each section. It is unique in blending the history, popular culture, and sociology of American daily life, including those of Americans who were not white, middle class, and prosperous.
Download or read book The Eisenhower Years a Social History of the 1950 S written by Richard T. Stanley and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-06-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fabulous Fifties were America's "Happy Days." The Eisenhower Years produced amazing contributions to our American culture -- and to other cultures around the world. In so many ways, Americans innovated, and the world imitated -- from Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll to the Salk anti-polio vaccine. America's contributions to the world included motion pictures and the Broadway stage; radio and television; amateur and professional sports; jazz, the "blues," country-and-Western music, traditional ballads and popular songs, and rock 'n' roll; domestic and international business and trade; public and private educational opportunities; and a rich and varied literature. While Americans did not invent all these categories, they nevertheless took each to new heights during the Eisenhower Years, and shared their bounty with the world. The Eisenhower Years, generally speaking, were happier, more stable, more prosperous, more optimistic, and simpler times then the preceding decades of the 1930's and '40's and the increasingly turbulent 1960's and '70's that followed. In fact, America's exuberance in so many areas of the arts and everyday life was omnipresent. As for political and military achievements, President Eisenhower kept us safely out of war, and was wise enough to stay out of the way of Americas artists and entrepreneurs. As a result, the Eisenhower Years should forever be remembered as those "Happy Days."
Download or read book The World Almanac and Book of Facts for 1950 written by E. Eastman Irvine and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 912 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bad Old Days written by Alan J. Levine and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many, especially those on the political left, the 1950s are the "bad old days." The widely accepted list of what was allegedly wrong with that decade includes the Cold War, McCarthyism, racial segregation, self-satisfied prosperity, and empty materialism. The failings are coupled with ignoring poverty and other social problems, complacency, conformity, the suppression of women, and puritanical attitudes toward sex. In all, the conventional wisdom sees the decade as bland and boring, with commonly accepted people paralyzed with fear of war, Communism, or McCarthyism, or all three. Alan J. Levine, shows that the commonly accepted picture of the 1950s is flawed. It distorts a critical period of American history. That distortion seems to be dictated by an ideological agenda, including an emotional obsession with a sentimentalized version of the 1960s that in turn requires maintaining a particular, misleading view of the post-World War II era that preceded it. Levine argues that a critical view of the 1950s is embedded in an unwillingness to realistically evaluate the evolution of American society since the 1960s. Many--and not only liberals and those further to the left--desperately desire to avoid seeing, or admitting, just how badly many things have gone in the United States since the 1960s. Bad Old Days shows that the conventional view of the 1950s stands in opposition to the reality of the decade. Far from being the dismal prelude to a glorious period of progress, the postwar period of the late 1940s and 1950s was an era of unprecedented progress and prosperity. This era was then derailed by catastrophic political and economic misjudgments and a drastic shift in the national ethos that contributed nothing, or less than nothing, to a better world.
