Outside the Gates of Eden
The Dream of America from Hiroshima to Now
Exhilaration and anxiety, the yearning for community and the quest for identity: these shared, contradictory feelings course through "Outside the Gates of Eden", Peter Bacon Hales's ambitious and intoxicating new history of America from the atomic age to the virtual age. Born under the shadow of the bomb, with little security but the cold comfort of duck-and-cover, the postwar generations lived through – and led – some of the most momentous changes in all of American history. Hales explores those decades through perceptive accounts of a succession of resonant moments, spaces, and artifacts of everyday life – drawing unexpected connections and tracing the intertwined undercurrents of promise and peril. From sharp analyses of newsreels of the first atomic bomb tests and the invention of a new ideal American life in Levittown; from the music emerging from the Brill Building and the Beach Boys, and a brilliant account of Bob Dylan's transformations; from the painful failures of communes and the breathtaking utopian potential of the early days of the digital age, Hales reveals a nation, and a dream, in transition, as a new generation began to make its mark on the world it was inheriting. Full of richly drawn set-pieces and countless stories of unforgettable moments, "Outside the Gates of Eden" is the most comprehensive account yet of the baby boomers, their parents, and their children, as seen through the places they built, the music and movies and shows they loved, and the battles they fought to define their nation, their culture, and their place in what remains a fragile and dangerous world.
About the Author
Peter Bacon Hales is professor emeritus of the history of art and architecture and director emeritus of the American Studies Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the author of several books, including, most recently, "Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project". He lives and writes in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviews
"'Outside the Gates of Eden' looks at how American cultural landscapes have transformed and endured from the close of World War II to the first decade of the twenty-first century. Looking at diverse Cold War places and spaces – from suburban housing developments and atomic bomb testing sites to countercultural communes, Silicon Valley garages, and the virtual realms of computer gaming – Hales considers the significant impact that Cold War sensibilities, especially the persistent threat of nuclear devastation, have had on American understandings of self and national identity. Engaging, personal, and persuasive, 'Outside the Gates of Eden' neatly synthesizes the lived experiences of postwar atomic anxiety and their enormous repercussions today" – Erika Doss, author of "Memorial Mania"
"In his new book, 'Outside the Gates of Eden: The Dream of America from Hiroshima to Now', Peter Bacon Hales, known for his Atomic Spaces, sets the American nightmare of nuclear war against the American dream of peaceful suburban prosperity. He juxtaposes sites such as Levittown, New York, and Yucca Flat, Nevada, also known as Doom Town, where nuclear weapons were tested on tract houses in 1953. His penetrating analyses of American places as well as television shows, films, video games, and advertisements will appeal to readers in both American history and cultural studies" – Dolores Hayden, author of "Building Suburbia"
"In 'Outside the Gates of Eden' Peter Hales offers a stunning reinterpretation of US cultural history after 1945. It explores the shadows and promises of a nuclear world marked by excessive dreams and paranoia, simulated perfection and scenarios of disaster" – David E. Nye, author of "America's Assembly Line"
