Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Best of Times: Motifs from Postwar America—Reflections on Nostalgia
    The Best of Times: Motifs from Postwar America—Reflections on Nostalgia
    The Best of Times: Motifs from Postwar America—Reflections on Nostalgia
    Ebook249 pages3 hours

    The Best of Times: Motifs from Postwar America—Reflections on Nostalgia

    By Wyn Wachhorst

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Old-time radio, the folk revival, the golden age of science fiction, steam railroads, baseball, the Western, and other genres color our images of the 1950s. But contrary to the countercultural myth that America during this period was a sterile, soulless society, culturally and intellectually empty, it was an introspective era of innovation and creativity, the seedtime of the sixties, the harbinger of which was the urban folk revival.

    The Best of Times presents a collection of essays, each followed by a related memoir, focusing on postwar popular culture, exploring topics that mark the era but are also nostalgic in themselvesthe comforting continuity of long-running radio shows, train whistles that brought the sweet sorrow of distance to small-town nights, lazy summers of baseball, endless stretches of unknown lands to the West that once compelled the imagination, the heroes and vagabonds of folksong who roamed a simpler world, and dreams of alien civilizations on neighboring planets, deepened by the dawning reality of spaceflight. These pieces balance personal, cultural, and mythic nostalgia, recalling author Wyn Wachhorsts youth, the postwar era, and its dreams of a fabled West or Norman Rockwells small-town America.

    Blending history, memoir, imagery, and analysis, this collection of essays offers poetic reflections on the nature of nostalgia and postwar America.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateJan 6, 2016
    ISBN9781504963138
    The Best of Times: Motifs from Postwar America—Reflections on Nostalgia
    Author

    Wyn Wachhorst

    Growing up in America in the forties and fifties, Wyn Wachhorst lived the topics of these essays. He performed in the urban folk music revival, was part of the duck-and-cover generation, and came of age in a time before television eclipsed radio, football superseded baseball, and crime shows replaced Westerns, a time before the reality of spaceflight displaced the wonders of science fiction and the romance of the railroad receded into history. His book, The Dream of Spaceflight: Essays on the Near Edge of Infinity (Basic Books), was on the science bestseller lists of Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Thomas Alva Edison: An American Myth (MIT Press) was a history book club selection, picked by Choice as an outstanding book of the year, and reviewed favorably in Newsweek, Discover, Smithsonian, Science, the New York Times, London Sunday Times, and some three dozen other publications. His fifty-five articles and essays have appeared in the Yale Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Massachusetts Review, Southwest Review, San Francisco magazine, Narrative magazine, Endless Vacation, Mechanical Engineering, Isis, Extrapolation, Explorers’ Journal, Planetary Report, the Journal of American History, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle and in anthologies. Three of his essays were noted in Best American Essays, and one recently won the McGinnis-Ritchie Prize for best essay of the year. He writes speeches and articles for Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin and was asked by NASA’s Decade Planning Team to write the new NASA myth, an inspirational long-term mission statement. Wachhorst received his Ph.D. in American history from Stanford and taught history and American studies at Stanford, the University of California Santa Cruz, and San Jose State. He resides with his wife in Atherton, California.

    Related to The Best of Times

    Related ebooks

    Art For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Freedom of Thought

      Mar 4, 2019

      Oxford University Press, 220 pp., $18.95 REAL PRESIDENTS READ BOOKS. When the Library of Congress was destroyed in the War of 1812, the former president Thomas Jefferson offered his collection to replace it, commenting that “I do not know that it co

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Atlantic 10

      Dec 13, 2022

      The Atlantic 10
      7 min read

    • Article

      Redux: Greetings from America

      Jul 3, 2018

      Redux: Greetings from America
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Ed Simon

      Dec 14, 2019

      This year, with the logic that our social reality is as disturbing and surrealistic as any fabulist gothic, I’ve decided to make an exception for nonfiction by including books on politics. The post A Year in Reading: Ed Simon appeared first on The Mi

      23 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Keret, Solnit, Truong, Cruz, Rushdie, and More

      Sep 3, 2019

      A blockbuster week for big literary names: new collections from Rebecca Solnit (essays) and Etgar Keret (stories), and Salman Rushdie's spin on Don Quixote. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Keret, Solnit, Truong, Cruz, Rushdie, and More app

      6 min read

    • Article

      Are We Having Too Much Fun?

      Apr 27, 2017

      Are We Having Too Much Fun?
      9 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Sep 1, 2020

      Letters
      5 min read

    • Article

      The False Romance of Russia

      Dec 12, 2019

      The False Romance of Russia
      7 min read

    • Article

      When Grunge Was King

      Apr 17, 2022

      When Grunge Was King
      2 min read

    • Article

      Cozying Up With The 10 Best Books Of January

      Jan 21, 2022

      Engaging with the world, as these books demonstrate, can be both an enjoyable and a bracing experience. Understanding the struggles as well as the joys and aspirations of people near and far gives readers an opportunity to empathize with others, as w

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Common Genius of Lincoln and Einstein: The president and the physicist teach us a lesson about moral genius.

      Oct 30, 2014

      Abraham Lincoln would still be remembered today as a self-taught prairie prodigy and an astute political operator who crushed the Confederate uprising, even without the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the end of slavery. Albert

      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘It Was Shocking’: The Author Under Attack For Doubting Shakespeare

      Jun 27, 2023

      “It’s a funny thing,” admits Elizabeth Winkler. “I don’t really like controversy. I don’t seek it out. There are some people that thrive on it and I don’t. I find it upsetting and distressing to see my work and my ideas misrepresented and twisted. It

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Master’s Lessons

      Nov 26, 2019

      A Master’s Lessons
      3 min read

    • Article

      Confronting Caste

      Jul 24, 2020

      Confronting Caste
      7 min read

    • Article

      Confronting Caste

      Jul 24, 2020

      Confronting Caste
      7 min read

    • Article

      From Mukasonga to Alexievich, We Need Writers Who Bear Witness

      Apr 18, 2017

      “I’ve often said it was the genocide of Rwanda’s Tutsis in 1994 that made me a writer.” These are the words of author Scholastique Mukasonga, a Tutsi who lost 27 family members—including her mother and father—when Hutu throughout her nation murdered

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Best of Times

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Best of Times - Wyn Wachhorst

      GwQabook_preview_excerpt.html\ےFrmDH͢`PZi+J4Ib @uwiTL?O~'tόV!n.Yy9'3ϟgGO>~: O9bUuuU ÔO}}b54UqWM:ƛwxkLn<* S uU>*jJn}&zǟ}(˷/~z_ll?ӧ?yQ}R}pxßl>>ɥ7u8̿L)vs_%O>ych&>ΡBc|nCywÍ~풯.o놶ss1<[0+Hv8usyNWƘ`ڧ[4r]^ T|r|]:rmK)r-8|@^es77mCý@ zG9!V'j7ϟTMW za}xGqm7I;s|,2a9b\U?_Vѥ G{}R}"Ԝ Fto{_]OK_]~*|{G6ߎ)?fwb_0?ΰ Q ^ l:xza;e߻j8fjqr=~hAe=P=jhS 9v+o!Ӧz`^!tU=/|o,j.pQt\%Xv3Lz`nýzw~Ac Y11 y 0Kc4< h6vxm/g< _s .xWDwY?9A(e}=4swGkH0 dCIPo{[וLj MP y¯^`AMo&Y{.\[Ñ<$< `;S2ce{ޥ=Di9΃@ZNa]  ϗ_N=qxUF758ݞC=}ɧD5:XKŬ} to Ԁ1R t ŝyw@IHqT SE 1X/c Sr7)>+~a-$K،=ߧNOnRտP@|Qw|M ~s%~y.,-E ɍ'G8 JAovsGɵy̏Z. pZm[`<[jk;)rJd?҃*@,)3Hh1V_b,p J3Ds`#9LV=ram0Ghbhnȕ./]^VF(0MN1%sJK aLa4hsHV]IĞ0Ò@]CJ5%$qc>5zvJ9 ׄVHf<(i*0#YNaqHoo$^O,@-]#a(n TZ 9^SWDx.K0<½hPh]<!J[<\xn3ZU8t&"9[%{O:Lɘ-2fZKC Nn̪ k[|>j|S*&0*:qA}kN۶bmyd"zsͿv3s9gLL-c߇Ito_0>Vv :K/u 1cӯL3`|fĞ4` O_'Ep"G iFdE [  C"1N|g,KQl67Io $@&3 hYOB$u1)n]A\xFhON^5_Éi!q44Hu ~(^fT0UrkDO62*AfcҼ 74"F8I q t~8g_ b?Yk.S:l.sa ;Ю5̥8T (iu4JutggnP,utϛ%qɜ-D3bgٞM?d8δtrQWLgir)h JQPQR.e댔KN$x|w95VK;QId Ta2dWNjx*8 S6,:xy[N˞ )ʼn&|3衮afmٻ95icC'oŽ,*܉PLFn:3VDDƖ`W:tG]oNLuL,H'D;T/"ׇv#UJ:Vtl$~ 0i "u)h4r hhFoPf&exwSnyN/y4mbb#wc_M 2ڎIQXs)ۗj,Js]  uKz |/h;㾈hKRg$}1œ)G/("O'Sܲ%pŌr J#WϏsWUava7B{gVjU\)B#k d6y^~̐F.B&iف*ӺMiYҡ\&OF4k="+ҲQU B 8*p\.31FQB(Rts=0'u<5Ehw/&DfS+5f)NVzf=b&Nl=^`L:ޔ(Z1L:HiɷG`sgIVŧ1H9\gfVkBQ/m{9FVEp~R0} +j _YM¤;k˺躹ߚsYf5=u]:A$q7˒sd*{h˵%PaGg;HJ3=k(^sU ڍk.0.'zcD.Ub[̖,`YziN16g\xfMcXJ|1ve;ib9DyWd$ٰ,7M#pU%5r-ݷߋu9 iQurǥ6)]M6Hvt h 2R`=K3)519c+f:T.RbE_mVbP$oC)/MjyDDedcBJK /n(kzJZ'ґ#nڻWڞL ,iWUj~y.G+1f,XA`UlXX؊4dY=7 _Zs~ ?M\-6/,s N/595+'HqdAz׮7.Yd `(Id鼄C6L;\ǥ۸ߵS^uWҰB^&$}[%D) =7%ij>d8t+p&LCI^NG3ߣNĉ+29龴i ׶$rQ ֱ][(pmńҬ2R3\%rz10 BK.u ŮD/zA)6:MTAX_ϹdƔhm Ā@aP;x?nЛ>GK.b,bQkڂ2It" jrc@`R`\.=L[`u F' $UCv[ӱIk6HKh Hx%b;Ħ6 DN"J(E37i1[Xg8U{FGo5mqVtO2K-nhBd#;G׭5`Cc>u∡RRE)Rkmj\-}A_8Z_[:R%dݓo?D!ѷ'+P\ مC9 ' 8i ˫ֵ$듾zԳɈWmJG8XlR̘!1jOZ./z'O뉖(֮hNRV(sqlQB3dOI]8t.ⲽ.t\daȰ7ib$ezjg/~.",$v~QΥΞ㣶 iR &qZ)LYWP-ȚmR﷙E] %dGx۵Z-+ '$JLtna^\o» (<Ho^mdߑZIdZ 7݈3i0\vkm/S) Z3)*` \ںt#1'GTk51K~e ]㲤F:n\EUWfXԊI,O aI1_~b-e@Ho=噉OՍn6lE6sbY(wh QS^S
      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1