Cold War Hothouses: Inventing Postwar Culture from Cockpit to Playboy

Steeped in technological innovation and driven by unprecedented growth, life in America after World War II was transformed in every aspect and at every scale. From the military-industrial complex and suburban sprawl to the ballpoint pen and the TV dinner, the by-products of the Cold War radically altered physical space and human experience. In the half-century that separates these developments from our own time, however, our awe at the advances of postwar society has softened to nostalgia, and our affection for the everyday objects that were left behind has clouded our view of the enormous spatial reorganizations and transformations that took place, Cold War Hothouses casts an eye on this pivotal time in history, when scientists and architects, industrialists and advertisers, invented nothing short of a new American culture.