The End of the Innocence

The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair

By: Lawrence R. Samuel

Narrated by: Richard Teimer

Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

From April 1964 to October 1965, some 52 million people from around the world flocked to the New York World's Fair, an experience that lives on in the memory of many individuals and in America's collective consciousness. Taking a perceptive look back at "the last of the great world's fairs," Lawrence R. Samuel offers a thought-provoking portrait of this seminal event and of the cultural climate that surrounded it. Samuel counters critics' assessments of the fair as the "ugly duckling" of global expositions. Opening five months after President Kennedy's assassination, the fair allowed millions to celebrate international brotherhood while the conflict in Vietnam came to a boil. Samuel's work charts the birth of the fair from inception in 1959 to demolition in 1966 and provides a broad overview of the social and cultural dynamics that led to the birth of the event. The book is published by Syracuse University Press.

©2007 Syracuse University Press (P)2014 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"An overdue and well-deserved encomium to a largely denigrated chapter in [New York] city's history." ( The New York Times)

Decent book on the Fair; weird narration

If you are interested in the 1964-1965 New York Word's Fair this is a pretty good book. Not as good as the excellent "Tomorrow-Land" on the social context of the Fair and its times, but "The End of the Innocence" has more of a focus on the Fair and the exhibits themselves. However, the narration is irritating. Narrator Richard Teimer seems constantly to be on the edge of a bemused chuckle, even in serious passages on the Kennedy assassination, protest demonstrations, etc. Not a crippling flaw for Fair lovers, but the weird performance mars a good story.

The Narrator makes this awesome book even better!

This book is a hidden gem. If you have any interest in pop culture and history this book is great. It flows well and is a great listen but what is even better is the narrator. Its almost like listening to a podcast the narrations is so good. He has a great inflection and he even laughs during the reading. Great book - it sat in my wish list for a year until I got to it but I should have listened sooner. When you are done listening go on line and check out all the campy 60's film of the fair - the book is so well written and spot on - great book - I listen to a lot of dud's but this is the best book I have listen to!

Lots of Information - Not Well Presented

As a student of the US World's Fairs I was not unfamiliar with the subject matter at hand. I chose this book to round out my knowledge of the '64/'65 fair. While I learned much from this text, it was almost a horrible slog to listen through.

First off the narration. Richard Teimer's voice is very easy to listen to in tonal quality. His inflection and accentuation of the passages is downright annoying. It was like he was narrating to a child and putting in condescending smiles in the narrative. It was distracting to the subject. I don't like dull, monotone either but this narration is darn near as bad.

As for the subject. Well, it's thorough if nothing else. Unfortunately it glazed over much of the ancillary projects around the fair but directly connected to the park the book is ultimately covering. Many of the facts presented are just re-canned period information from many films presented at the time and now available on YouTube. Some of it was darn near word for word. Additionally, wrongly quoted facts about the 39 fair and no mention of the Beatles visit to Shea during the 65 run of the fair made me sadly disappointed. The most irritating section was the end when the subject was rushed to completing with the afterlife of Corona Park.

Would I buy this again? Probably if it was the only text / Audible audiobook on the subject. As I explore more on the subject on Audible I home to find a more acceptable presentation though.