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In this prequel to Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis (1998), his acclaimed book about the post-industrial city as a site of theming, branding and simulated spaces, sociologist John Hannigan travels back in time to the 1950s. Unfairly stereotyped as 'the tranquillized decade,' America at mid-century hosted an escalating proliferation and conjunction of 'spectacular' events, spaces and technologies. Spectacularization was collectively defined by five features. It reflected and legitimated a dramatic increase in scale from the local/regional to the national. It was mediated by the increasingly popular medium of television. It exploited middle-class tension between comfortable conformity and desire for safe adventure. It celebrated technological progress, boosterism and military power. It was orchestrated and marketed by a constellation, sometimes a coalition, of entrepreneurs and dream merchants, most prominently Walt Disney. In this wide-ranging odyssey across mid-century America, Hannigan visits leisure parks (Cypress Gardens), parades (Tournament of Roses), mega-events (Squaw Valley Olympics, Century 21 Exposition), architectural styles (desert modernism), innovations (underwater photography, circular film projection) and everyday wonders (chemistry sets). Collectively, these fashioned the 'spectacular gaze,' a prism through which Americans in the 1950s were acculturated to and conscripted into a vision of a progressive, technology-based future. Rise of the Spectacular will appeal to architects, landscape designers, geographers, sociologists, historians and leisure/tourism researchers, as well as non-academic readers who are by a fascinating era in history.
Introduction: Re-imagining the 1950s -- On the road : safe adventures in 1950s America -- "The biggest Rolodex in Hollywood" : Walt Disney at mid-century -- Desert spectacular -- The name of the rose -- It happened in Squaw Valley -- The most photographed place in America -- Marine marvels -- Seattle invents the future -- Chemistry sets, planetariums and science fairs -- Interrogating the spectacular.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.