This is an attempt to chronicle the decade which began with postwar austerity, saw the exploding of the H-bomb, the popularisation of television and the emergence of "teenagers" and concluded with ventures into space and the beginnings of the affluent society. The book covers this period of major rebellion against existing attitudes to sex, class, authority and "good taste", the time of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Burgess and Maclean and the Angry Young Men as well as of Krushchev, Castro and Suez.