Main entry:

Hannigan, John A., 1948- author.

Title & Author:

Rise of the spectacular : America in the 1950s / John Hannigan.

Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022.
©2022

Description:

x, 183 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 25 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Introduction: Re-imagining the 1950s -- On the road : safe adventures in 1950s America -- "The biggest Rolodex in Hollywood" : Walt Disney at mid-century -- Part 1. California calling -- Desert spectacular -- The name of the rose -- It happened in Squaw Valley -- Part 2. Photographing the spectacular -- The most photographed place in America -- Marine marvels -- Part 3. Sputnik, science and the spectacular -- Seattle invents the future -- Chemistry sets, planetariums and science fairs -- Interrogating the spectacular.

Summary:

"In this prequel to Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis (1998), his acclaimed book about the post-industrial city as a site of theming, branding and simulated spaces, sociologist John Hannigan travels back in time to the 1950s. Unfairly stereotyped as 'the tranquillized decade', America at mid-century hosted an escalating proliferation and conjunction of 'spectacular' events, spaces, and technologies. Spectacularization was collectively defined by five features. It reflected and legitimated a dramatic increase in scale from the local/regional to the national. It was mediated by the increasingly popular medium of television. It exploited middle-class tension between comfortable conformity and desire for safe adventure. It celebrated technological progress, boosterism and military power. It was orchestrated and marketed by a constellation, sometimes a coalition, of entrepreneurs and dream merchants, most prominently Walt Disney. In this wide-ranging odyssey across mid-century America, Hannigan visits leisure parks (Cypress Gardens), parades (Tournament of Roses), mega-events (Squaw Valley Olympics, Century 21 Exposition), architectural styles (desert modernism), innovations (underwater photography, circular film projection) and everyday wonders (chemistry sets). Collectively, these fashioned the 'spectacular gaze', a prism through which Americans in the 1950s were acculturated to and conscripted into a vision of a progressive, technology-based future. Rise of the Spectacular will appeal to architects, landscape designers, geographers, sociologists, historians, and leisure/tourism researchers, as well as non-academic readers who are by a fascinating era in history"-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

9780367902797 hardcover
0367902796 hardcover
9780367902803 paperback
036790280X paperback
electronic book
9781003023548
electronic publication
9781000409024
9781000409000

Subject:

Spectacular, The.
Spectaculaire.
Civilization
United States Civilization 1945-
United States History 1945-1953.
United States History 1953-1961.
États-Unis Civilisation 1945-
États-Unis Histoire 1945-1953.
États-Unis Histoire 1953-1961.
United States

Form/genre:

History

Added entries:

America in the 1950s

Holdings:

Location: Library main 315546
Call No.: 315546
Copy: 1
Status: Available