The Fifties in America surveys the events and people of all of North America during the 1950's. This three-volume publication, Salem Press's second reference set on a twentieth century decade, is modeled on the award-winning The Sixties in America (1999). The 1950's are often portrayed as an uneventful era in North American history - a period of political and cultural conservatism. The decade was in fact a period of political turbulence, mounting world conflict, and cultural change. The 1950's experienced the Cold War, McCarthyism and a trend toward the suppression of civil liberties.