A Washington Post Best Book of 2009"Fascinating . . . a cabinet of wonders. . . . Those who love the AMC series Mad Men, set just after the epochal year, will find much to love in Kaplan's book."--"Los Angeles Times""Clever . . . Fun . . . Kaplan makes an intriguing case that 1959 was an authentic annus mirabellis."--"The Wall Street Journal""Enormously engaging. . . . Kaplan is wonderful at chronicling what changed and how."--"Washington Post""Immensely enjoyable reading. . . . A first-rate book."--George Packer, "The New Yorker""This sprawling, holistic joy of a book explores, expands, and provokes reassessment of an entire era--not just a year--in a way that is deeply satisfying and enlightening. Social, political, and historical commentary doesn't get much better than this."--"Daily Kos"It was the year of the microchip, the birth-control pill, the space race, and the computer revolution; the rise of Pop art, free jazz, "sick comics," the New Journalism, and indie films; the emergence of Castro, Malcolm X, and personal superpower diplomacy; the beginnings of Motown, Happenings, and the Generation Gap--all bursting against the backdrop of the Cold War, the fallout-shelter craze, and the first American casualties of the war in Vietnam. Drawing on original research, untapped archives, and interviews with major figures of the time, Fred Kaplan pieces together the vast, untold story of a civilization in flux--and paints vivid portraits of the men and women whose inventions, ideas, and energy paved the way for the world we know today.