Description:
Richard Lingeman vividly recreates the momentous years between VJ Day in 1945 and the beginning of the Korean War in 1950--America's postwar period, the "age of anxiety" characterized by the onset of the Red Scare and a nascent resistance to the growing Cold War consensus.
The psychological hangover of World War II merged with burgeoning anti-communist paranoia and created a dark mood, a "postwar noir" phenomenon. The Noir Forties saw the arrival of McCarthyism and a bleak distortion of American political culture. Lingeman traces the attitudes, hopes and fears, prejudices, and collective dreams and nightmares of the times, as reflected in the media, popular culture, political movements, opinion polls, and psychological studies.
Richard Lingeman has created a memorable portrait of what the American people lived, dreamed, and thought during the period that became the crucible in which the destiny of the next forty years was settled.
Review Quotes: "A journalist of eclectic accomplishment...Lingeman is at home with his subject.... [E]ngaging."
Washington Independent Review of Books
Books & Culture "[The Noir Forties] does help us understand that time-and our time."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "[S]eamlessly written and stuffed full of original scholarship.... Lingeman beautifully blends the arts and music into his sweeping analysis of the politics of the period. Thus the 'voices of the people'- including artists-are heard here."
U.S. News & World Report "[E]nlightening.... [Lingeman] excels at portraying the uncertain postwar mood and the way that films noir were uniquely able to capture that mood."
Barnes & Noble Review "There's a lot of material here and it all flows together seamlessly. This is a great book for buffs of both film and history persuasions."
Library Journal, starred review "In The Noir Forties, Richard Lingeman offers a vivid reexamination of the cultural, psychological, and political tenor of the 'age of anxiety.' Lingeman powerfully evokes the milieu of the late forties....The Noir Forties captures an incisive slice of American life during a period of quiet but seismic change."
History Book Club