The Fifties: An Underground History

An “exciting and enlightening revisionist history” (Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author) that upends the myth of the 1950s as a decade of conformity and celebrates a few solitary, brave, and stubborn individuals who pioneered the radical gay rights, feminist, civil rights, and environmental movements, from historian James R.Gaines. An “enchanting, beautifully written book about heroes and the dark times to which they refused to surrender” (Todd Gitlin, bestselling author of The Sixties).In a series of character portraits, The Fifties invokes the accidental radicals-people motivated not by politics but by their own most intimate conflicts-who sparked movements for change in their time and our own.Among many others, we meet legal pathfinder Pauli Murray, who was tortured by both her mixed-race heritage and her “in between” sexuality.Through years of hard work and self-examination, she turned her demons into historic victories.Ruth Bader Ginsburg credited her for the arg