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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hannigan, John, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spectacular, The.

Civilization.

United States--Civilization--1945-.

United States.

United States--History--1945-1953.

History.

United States--History--1953-1961.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

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

Place of Publication:

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

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.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. On the road: Safe Adventures in 1950s America

2. "The biggest Rolodex in Hollywood": Walt Disney at mid-century

pt. 1 California calling

3. Desert spectacular

4. The name of the rose

5. It happened in Squaw Valley

pt. 2 Photographing the spectacular

6. The most photographed place in America

7. Marine marvels

pt. 3 Sputnik, science and the spectacular

8. Seattle invents the future

9. Chemistry sets, planetariums, and science fairs.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Other Format:

Online version: Hannigan, John A., 1948- Rise of the spectacular

ISBN:

9780367902797

0367902796

9780367902803

036790280X

OCLC:

1232226710

Publisher Number:

99988119070