In the period of major social change that spanned the 1950s through the 1970s, science fiction became an ideal vessel to illustrate a multifaceted upsurge of radical protest, with its focus on speculation, alternate worlds, and the future. Dangerous Visions and New Worlds details, celebrates, and evaluates how science fiction novels and authors depicted, interacted with, and were inspired by these cultural and political movements in America and Great Britain. It starts with progressive authors who rose to prominence in the conservative 1950s, challenging the era's narratives of technological breakthroughs and space-conquering male heroes, then moves through the 1960s, when authors shattered existing writing conventions and incorporated contemporary themes such as modern mass media culture, corporate control, state surveillance, the Vietnam War, and rising currents of counterculture, ecological awareness, feminism, sexual liberation, and Black Power. The 1970s, when the genre reflected the end of various dreams of the "long Sixties," is also explored along with the first half of the 1980s, which gave rise to new subgenres. -- Provided by publisher.
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