1959:

The Year Everything Changed

Fred Kaplan

The 59ers – The book argues that 1959 is an overlooked pivotal year in US history, a year that ushered in a new era of scientific advancement and social change as well as a new war, in Vietnam. An interesting premise but I’m not unbiased. Four of my best friends and I were born in ’59. Three of us met in college. When we get together these days, we carry on the same conversation we’ve enjoyed for the past 40 years or so. As French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr famously opined, “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.” The more things change, the more they remain the same.