The Fifties by David Halberstam. The notion that it was the Fifties that was the real time of social upheaval and not the Sixties is perhaps not so novel, but in a series of short unlinked chapters on a variety of subjects - from the civil rights movement to McDonalds to Levittown to television and youth culture, Halberstam makes clear why and how it really was the pivotal decade.
