American Literature From 1945 to 1970

The literature of the United States following World War II was, in many ways, a product of that war, mirroring a fact that the war had so clearly exposed: the vulnerability of humanity. Throughout the complacent Fifties, writers questioned the establishment values and pat answers to life’s large, searching questions. In the Sixties, they took the lead in many of the radical social and philosophical movements of the times. In the Seventies, fiction began to blend fantasy and realism in a creative interpretation of life. American Literature From 1945 to 1970 surveys the literature and themes of this era, with a look at such writers as Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Joseph Heller, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, J.D. Salinger, and John Updike. Kit includes 8 lessons, 13 transparencies, student handouts, testing, vocabulary, projects, and more.