Conventional historical wisdom focuses on the sixties as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, yet, as Fred Kaplan argues, it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the turbulent decade that followed. During this vital, overlooked period in American history, pop culture exploded, court rulings unshackled prevously banned books, civil rights laws and protests broadened political power, the birth control pill ushered in the sexual and feminist revolutions, America entered the war in Vietnam, the invention of the microchip launched the computer age, and the space race put a new twist on the frontier myth.