1959: The Year Everything Changed

Before listening to this book - the fifties only meant Sputnik, Elvis and doo wop to me (born in 54). How wrong I was. This book opened a new world to me from investigation of classic jazz recordings to some very interesting pre-60's philosophy and thought that I knew nothing of.

If you want your perception of the 50's as a sleepy decade to be given a jolt, this is the book to do it!! Very well done - even handed and broad in scope.

I enjoyed this book very much. It had a very broad history of the time that really illuminated the beats, jazz music, and race struggles of the time leading up to, at, and beyond 1959. Narration was great. Well-written.

This would have been a 4- or 5-star experience if technology, politics, and rock & roll had been given as much attention as jazz music.

It was extremely difficult to listen to all the details regarding jazz music. You learn the actual DATES on which obscure jazz musicians made obscure recordings, and the recording halls in which they made them. It seems there were also a few mentions of what the musicians had for breakfast on the morning of the recordings, along with the actual street locations of certain recording studios. Hours and hours were devoted to jazz music, but only about an hour total related to rock & roll, computer technology, and politics (one part of a chapter covering the Cuban Missile Crisis). I don't recall anything related to television programming or technology. If The Tonight Show was mentioned, I don't remember it.

Not applicable

Disappointment

If you want to know all there is to know about jazz music and jazz musicians in the quarter-centuries before and after 1959, this is the book for you. And, oh, yes - the 2 or 3 chapters devoted to William Burroughs and The Naked Lunch were also painful. I knew a lot more about both after reading the wikipedia article than I did after listening to this book.

This book brough together the threads and names of the late 1950's. Names I knew well, but had never seen as parts of larger patterns. Some surprises. Even though I was 12 in the year, I had no sence of how many profound pathes were being started in that time. Reads easily. A full story of the evolution of jazz during the time.

This author presents an incredibly simplified and rose-tinted view of most of the subjects covered. The author is clearly not much of a historian, but rather a reporter whose love of Kennedy, jazz and the beat generation assures that he has no ability to look critically at almost anything he covers in this book. There are some interesting facts, but given that he constantly stretches to count things as occuring as

No, I assume there are more talented writers out there.

Nope

Irrelevent. The whole premise is flawed and the author so in love with his subjects that the book requires too much editing to bother

If you're into Jazz, it might be okay. I was expecting more on general history, but it's very heavy on the arts... Jazz, literature, painting, etc... kind of weak on everything else. I probably stopped listening about 2/3 of the way through it and never went back to it.

While the opening chapters briefly discuss foreign affairs and the space race, the greater part of the book is devoted to changes in architecture, cinema, literature, music, painting, and photography in New York City. The book's perspective on events in 1959 reminds me of "The New Yorker" magazine cover by Saul Steinberg, skewed to give New York prominence over the rest of the country. The book is interesting in a Don Draper-esque kind of way but hardly lives up to its thesis that the course of world history was changed by events in 1959. Kaplan himself was only five years old in 1959. It is obvious that his true love is jazz (he writes jazz reviews for "Stereophile" magazine) and that he fantasizes about hanging out with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Fans of "Mad Men" will probably enjoy some chapters and may find themselves (like I did) rushing out to buy an album by Ornette Coleman just to see what all the fuss is about. In the end, Kaplan (like Sal Paradise) has "nothing to offer anybody except [his] own confusion."

Yes, because Joe Barrett's reading is exceptional. The timbre of his voice is very pleasing and his inflections are pitch perfect. I can't think of anyone who could have delivered a better performance.

Good question. This work is so comprehensive that it's difficult to compare to another book that isn't a straight-ahead reference. It addresses the political and geopolitical issues of the era, the space program and the important changes in jazz, literature and art. Simply, it's the most engrossing and informative non-fiction book I've read in years. Fred Kaplan had a great idea and employed a brilliant angle. I've listened to this book several times and learn something new with every listen. This work is for anyone interested in a complete (if there is such a thing) education. It's quite impressive and I was delighted to discover it.

Never, but very pleased with Joe Barrett's excellent performance.

It's engaging and engrossing, but who has that kind of time? One looks forward to earmarking the time to listen.

Five stars! Eagerly await any other works by Fred Kaplan.

1959 is the year I was born, so I had some serious interest in this book. I was not disappointed.

Until I read this book I had no idea so many seminal events happened in 1959. From music to science to politics, the events in 1959 were... I can't think of a better word than seminal. Once Kaplan points these out, one has to expect a decade like the '60s. One might expect something event more dramatic. This book is well worth reading, if you're at all interested in the decades that follow.