The end of the innocence: the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair

Abstract

From April 1964 to October 1965, some 52 million people from around world flocked to New York World's Fair, an experience that lives on in memory of many individuals and in America's collective consciousness. Taking a perceptive look back at the last of great world's fairs, Lawrence R. Samuel offers a thought-provoking portrait of this seminal event and of cultural climate that surrounded it. Samuel counters critics' assessments of fair as ugly duckling of global expositions. Opening five months after President Kennedy's assassination, fair allowed millions to celebrate international brotherhood while conflict in Vietnam came to a boil. This event was perhaps last time so many from so far could gather to praise harmony while ignoring cruel realities on such a gargantuan scale. This World's Fair glorified postwar American dream of limitless optimism even as a counterculture of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll came into being. It could rightly be called last gasp of that dream: The End of Innocence. Samuel's work charts birth of fair from inception in 1959 to demolition in 1966 and provides a broad overview of social and cultural dynamics that led to birth of event. It also traces events and thematic aspects of fair, with its focus on science, technology, and world of future. Accessible, entertaining, and informative, book is richly illustrated with contemporary photographs.