Between World War II and the upheavals of the 1960s, argues John Hannigan in Rise of the Spectacular, American culture was defined by the prominence of the “spectacular”: marvels of science, technology, architecture, and entertainment. In this wide-reaching yet concise study, Hannigan shows that 1950s U.S. culture was neither the “forgotten decade” of stultifying middle-class conformity nor just a preamble to the Bohemian 1960s. For all that American society seemed to cleave to familiar tropes in this decade, this book also reminds us that many of its cultural hallmarks were profoundly, spectacularly, and self-consciously new. Beamed into their homes on television, viewed on summer vacations, or experienced in full-color photography, these spectacles taught Americans to imagine their world and their future as defined by an optimistic, technologically driven progress. Alongside a set of other recent works—most notably Vanessa Schwartz’s 2020 The Jet Age Aesthetic—Hannigan’s book is a fascinating update to the historical orthodoxy of 1950s cultural normalcy.Hannigan locates the “spectacular” in a broad spectrum of case studies: large-scale urban displays like the Seattle World’s Fair and, of course, Disneyland; consumer fads including at-home chemistry sets and underwater photography; built environments such as Palm Springs’s “desert modern” and the ski slopes of the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. These wide-ranging examples of the spectacular share five overarching themes. They linked local/regional culture to the national, thrived in the tension between middle-class conformity and adventurous individualism, were mediated by the spread of mass media, celebrated technological progress and scientific futurity, and were orchestrated by a set of powerful and well-connected individuals.Nor were these entrepreneurs—most of all, Walt Disney, who takes center stage in this book as the dreamer-in-chief of the spectacular—blind to the power of their creations. They employed the spectacle to serve their own individual interests and those of Cold War-era America. In each case, moreover, these power brokers used their influence to exclude minorities from participation and representation in the growing realm of the spectacular and, in doing so, helped to demarcate visions of technological progress and the American future as predominantly white. Yet, even as these spectacles served the interests of the elite, they also scaffolded broader shifts not intended by the movers-and-shakers, toward a postmodern paradigm in which the line between the spectacular and the real became increasingly confused.Hannigan, a sociologist, writes with theoretical nuance, but in a narrative prose that is clear and engaging. At times, Rise of the Spectacular might have benefited from additional editorial review to clean some awkward formulations and minor errors. The work, additionally, relies predominantly on contemporary academic and popular accounts rather than primary sources. This sometimes makes it difficult to parse the history from the mythologies these spectacles themselves generated, such as the larger-than-life persona of Walt Disney. Despite this, Rise of the Spectacular is a thought-provoking analysis of a critical period in the history of American culture that suggests a number of fruitful avenues for further historical study.