It's a type of vernacular architecture that has never been examined as such. So how does your book Bomboozled, which focuses in on our fixation with fall-out shelters, fit into design history? This taught them to "distrust authority." Some have argued that the protest movements of the 1960s were partially fueled by the fact that Baby Boomers grew up with the government lying to them-telling them that by "ducking and covering" they could escape atomic annihilation. Our generation grew up literally under a mushroom cloud. The teacher told me I was doing it wrong, that I had to have my hands clasped behind my head. I was crouched down, bent over, and had my hands clasped behind my neck. I remember being in a "duck and cover" drill, and the teacher admonishing me for not doing it correctly. I used to wonder why bother doing schoolwork if we're all going to vaporize. In retrospect, I can see now that it completely framed my view of the world. Actually, it was more than totally obsessed for me. I was totally obsessed with the bomb and believed an attack was inevitable. How old are you? I ask because those of my age (60) were totally obsessed with the bomb in our lives and dreams. I asked Roy to tell me more about this curious period in history. The book addresses, among other things, how industry collaborated with government to scare the bejessus out of us, and then convince us everything would be just fine-if we protected ourselves with expensive products. Government Misled Itself and Its People Into Believing They Could Survive a Nuclear Attack (Pointed Leaf Press), actually does bring back lots of memories and a certain anger that we were so bamboozled by so many who had something to gain from our primal fears. Susan Roy's recent book Bomboozled: How the U.S. It is difficult to look back at the duck-and-cover days with any nostalgia, but possible to see it as more than it was made out to be. There were so many bomb-scares and bomb-scareploitation that it is a miracle the youth of the nation did not become one big basket case (or maybe we did). Even if he didn't really say it, it is indicative of the way young Baby Boomers fantasized and feared the future. It may have been a bad dream, but I vividly recall, as a kid in the late '50s, that I heard the newscaster Jack Lescoulie on The Today Show with Dave Garroway predict on air that by 1960 the United States and Russia would be fighting World War III.
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