The 50s: Story of a Decade

was there in real time, chronicling the tensions and innovations that lay beneath the era’s placid surface. In this thrilling volume, classic works of reportage, criticism, and fiction are complemented by new contributions from the magazine’s present all-star lineup of writers. The magazine’s commitment to overseas reporting flourished in the 1950s, leading to important dispatches from East Berlin, the Gaza Strip, and Cuba during the rise of Castro. Closer to home, the fight to break barriers and establish a new American identity led to both illuminating coverage, as in a portrait of Thurgood Marshall at an NAACP meeting in Atlanta, and trenchant commentary, as in E. B. White’s blistering critique of Senator Joe McCarthy. The arts scene is recalled in critical writing rarely reprinted, including Wolcott Gibbs on Anthony West on and Philip Hamburger on Also featured are great early works from Philip Roth and Nadine Gordimer, as well as startling poems by Theodore Roethke and Anne Sexton, among others. Completing the panoply are insightful and entertaining new pieces by present-day contributors examining the 1950s through contemporary eyes. The result is a vital portrait of American culture as only one magazine in the world could do it. Including contributions by And featuring new perspectives by “Superb: a gift that keeps on giving.” “[A] magnificent anthology.”