{"product_id":"rise-of-the-spectacular-john-hannigan-9780367902803","title":"Rise of the Spectacular: America in the 1950s","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this prequel to \u003ci\u003eFantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis\u003c\/i\u003e (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.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSpectacularization 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003eRise 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e John Hannigan\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 036790280X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780367902803\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Routledge\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/30\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 184\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.63lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.42d","brand":"John Hannigan","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43982586052863,"sku":"9780367902803","price":48.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_52c3d909-4f03-4d27-8e2c-418f3a1eb454.jpg?v=1683261992","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/rise-of-the-spectacular-john-hannigan-9780367902803","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}