Nostalgia for the fifties depicts it as a golden time: Ike in the White House, peace and prosperity, jobs, education, and the good things in life for all. But it wasn't only "happy times" and Hula Hoops. We built the H-bomb. Sputnik rocketed us into the Space Age. We fought the Korean War and the Cold War. At home we had the Red Scare and McCarthyism, Little Rock and Montgomery, the Beatniks and the generation gap. Here is a panorama that highlights important trends, colorful personalities, and the popular mass culture of the decade. This portrait of America in the fifties does not neglect foreign affairs, but it concentrates on major domestic events and on social and cultural history, particularly the television shows, movies, sports, books, music, fashions, customs, fads, and follies of the day. It also emphasizes people, devoting several chapters to Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and substantial sections to Joe McCarthy, Douglas MacArthur, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Dean, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and other luminaries of the time. And it devotes special attention to blacks, women, and the young, three groups whose impact on the nation's history increased steadily as the decade progressed. This fresh look at America in the fifties captures the era for those who lived it--and brings it to life for those who came later.--Adapted from book jacket.