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America in the 1950’s: Life in the Post-Modern Nuclear Age

America in the 1950’s: Life in the Post-Modern Nuclear Age. Nazi Germany had been defeated…. But………. …A New World Order Emerged with 3 major superpowers. Red China Soviet Russia (USSR) The United States. The Beginning of the Nuclear Age and the Cold War.

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America in the 1950’s: Life in the Post-Modern Nuclear Age

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  1. America in the 1950’s: Life in the Post-Modern Nuclear Age

  2. Nazi Germany had been defeated… But……….

  3. …A New World Order Emerged with 3 major superpowers • Red China • Soviet Russia (USSR) • The United States

  4. The Beginning of the Nuclear Age and the Cold War • 1945: US detonates two atomic bombs over Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) • 1949: USSR detonates first atomic bomb • 1949: Establishment of the People’s Republic of China (Chairman Mao Zedong; communist ideology) • 1952: Great Britain detonates first atomic bomb

  5. Then, in 1952, in the desert of southern New Mexico…

  6. Americans felt a number of new social pressures in the decade of the 1950’s • Fear…of communism (Russia, China, Cuba) and the future in general • Social upheaval (Civil Rights movement, youth culture) • Conformity and Consumerism: “Keeping Up with the Joneses” (technology, automobiles, TV, suburbia) • The “New American Dream” and a perception of limitless affluence (nuclear family, corporate culture) • Beginning of the Space Age (Sputnik, UFO’s, NASA) • Censorship and Government Control (McCarthyism, Red Scares, book/film censoring)

  7. The Post-Modern Technological Age • New scientific age of limitless possibility • Anything one can imagine is suddenly possible • Acceleration of technological dependence • New era of SCIENCE FICTION in literature, film, and television • Arthur C. Clarke; Ray Bradbury; Kurt Vonnegut • Invasion of the Body Snatchers; The Blob; The Day the Earth Stood Still • Space Patrol; The Twilight Zone; Science Fiction Theater

  8. What is Science Fiction? • It differs from fantasy; its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established theories. • Science fiction texts are often set in the future, in space, or in a different universe or dimension. • Explores the possible consequences of scientific discovery, making it a "literature of ideas.“ • Includes a human element, explaining what effect new discoveries and scientific development will have on us in the future (or present) • Often confronts important social issues, giving us an author’s glimpse of “what if” -Dystopian scenarios (1984, Fahrenheit 451, 2001: A Space Odyssey) • Sci-Fi is serious literature which ultimately tells us more about ourselves than about the inventions we surround ourselves with

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