1956: The World in Revolt

Hall (Rethinking the American Anti-war Movement), professor of American history at the University of Leeds, U.K., captures the collective drama of the year 1956, which saw massive expressions of popular discontent worldwide and demonstrated the stubbornness and violent proclivities of the “guardians of the ‘old order.’” The year was a major turning point in “the global struggle against white supremacy” in the U.S. and South Africa, despite stiff hostility and reactionary terror. Postwar anticolonial nationalism lingered in much of North Africa, fueling decolonization movements and further eroding the old European empires, though not without bloodshed; the Suez crisis exemplified the declining power of the European imperial powers. In the U.S.S.R., Khrushchev’s repudiation of Stalin and moves toward liberalization elicited surprise and uncertainty, and “fueled a series of rebellions across the ‘people’s democracies’ of Eastern Europe,” most visibly in Poland and Hungary, where Soviets countered the spread of “revolutionary fervor” with a brutal crackdown. Hall also covers the Castro brothers’ failed initial operation to overthrow the Batista dictatorship in Cuba, and American cultural and generational rebellion in the form of rock ’n’ roll, dancing, and poetry. Switching between these multiple developments, Hall provides a dramatic and immersive narrative of a tumultuous year of oppression, revolt, and reaction in a decade often considered bland and docile. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell Management. (Sept.)