The End of the Innocence: The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair

by Lawrence R. Samuel

Book Overview

From April 1964 to October 1965, some 52 million people from around the world flocked to the New York World's Fair, an experience that lives on in the memory of many individuals and in America's collective consciousness. Taking a perceptive look back at "the last of the great world's fairs," Samuel offers a vivid portrait of this seminal event and of the cultural climate that surrounded it. He also counters critics' assessments of the fair as the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815609566
• ISBN13: 9780815609568
• Release Date: August 2010
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Well Researched

The first half of the book explains the birth and idea to even think about initiating another world's fair in N.Y. Seeing at that time frame, that the 1939 N.Y. fair was only 20 years old. The second half gets into the actual fair exhibits and the trials and tribulations behind the scenes. The best book I've read on the nuts & bolts of the 64-65 World's Fair. A wealth of facts backed up by foot notes. The author does a great job organizing this detail into a more or less chronological order that makes it enjoyable to read and understand. Although there is a lot of trivia relating to individual exhibits, if you are looking for mechanical detail such as animatronics and stories behind the actual designers and workers of the great exhibits and what they did to make things work. This book may not be the right one. But since there is so little written on the 60's N.Y. World's Fair, This book has answered many of the questions I had about it, both trivia wise and politically.

"I know what reality is. I want something better" - James Cameron

The End of the Innocence is most interesting in that it tells about what was almost two completely separate World's Fairs. There was the fair the visitors (including myself as a child) experienced, and the fair as experienced by the investors and critics. And it seems that the visitors had a much better time of it! Lawrence Samuel breaks the book into two sections: planning/execution and the fair experience, which works out to map pretty well to the two perspectives described above; a very reasonable and understandable way to handle the material. The detail provided is remarkable; the book is researched incredibly well. I'm surprised that this much material was available. After reading it, I recommend purchasing any of the several DVDs available of films made for the fair; the book provides some excellent background for appreciating and enjoying this sort of material even more than one otherwise might One minor negative note - Samuel seems to have an anti-commerce, pro-unrest bias and this shows in his writing. Robert Moses successfully created an oasis of peace and plenty in what was rapidly becoming the tumult of the '60s; Samuel implies in the book that this was fraudulent on a fundamental level. I don't agree. If *you* agree, add a star to my rating.

A work of meticulous scholarship

With extensive footnotes, an extended bibliography, and occasionally illustrated with historic black-and-white photography, "The End Of The Innocence: The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair" by Lawrence R. Samuel is a descriptive analysis of the New York World's Fair that ran from April 1964 to October 1965 and was attended by approximately fifty-two million people. A seminal event of its decade, and reflective of the cultural climate in which it occurred, this World's Fair had a powerful and enduring impact on the nation which was, for the overwhelming majority of its visitors, was consistently positive, often inspirational, and occasionally transcendent. Held just five months after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, the World Fair was held in a time of turbulence that included American participation in the Vietnam War and an emerging counter-culture among the youth. But the Fair showcased the postwar American dream of an optimistic future. A work of meticulous scholarship combined with Samuel's narrative skill as a writer, "The End Of The Innocence" is especially recommended to the attention of students of American popular culture, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in 20th Century American history.