Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century 1947-1959

This book is an iconoclastic, penetrating, and darkly humorous history of America from 1947-1959, the decade that shaped the nation’s image and laid the groundwork for our modern world. Drawing from newspaper accounts, advertising campaigns, declassified government archives, old movies, and newsreels, author Ken Hollings depicts an unsettled time when the future became tangible. Atomic bombing strategies influenced Suburbia’s layout, bankers and movie stars experimented with hallucinogens, brainwashing was a form of interior decoration, and strange lights in the sky were taken seriously.

Hollings seamlessly interweaves technological developments, popular culture, politics, changes in home life, the development of the self, collective fantasy, and overwhelming paranoia, creating an alarming and often hysterically funny vision of the past that governs our futures.

(This book may contain a sharpie mark on the top or bottom edge and may show mild signs of shelfwear.)