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David Halberstam's The Fifties cracks open the decade and exposes it for what it was. In many ways, the time period served as a test ground for an explosive future. In David Halberstam's The Fifties, Vol. 5: The Beat, poetry and music define a generation. A culture of cool emerged in the 1950s that was composed of rebels and freaks. Beat writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg provided the language for a revolution. Shocking words were matched by the twirling hips of rock & rollers. Elvis' appropriation of African-American music took the world by storm. Suddenly, everyone wanted to be young. While bobby soxers fawned, beat students yearned to write the great American novel. The gathering storm clouds of the late '50s portend a dynamic next decade.