Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Flintstone Modernism: Or the Crisis in Postwar American Culture

by Jeffrey Lieber
Save 30% Save 30%
Current price ₹2,264.00
Original price ₹3,233.00
Original price ₹3,233.00
Original price ₹3,233.00
(-30%)
₹2,264.00
Current price ₹2,264.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9780262037495
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: The MIT Press
  • Publisher Imprint: The MIT Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 296
  • Original Price: USD 34.95
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 772 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): History / 20th & 21st Century, Art & Politics, and Criticism

Ancient history, midcentury modernism, Cinemascope, humanism and monumentality, totalitarianism and democracy: transformations in American culture and architecture.

In Flintstone Modernism, Jeffrey Lieber investigates transformations in postwar American architecture and culture. He considers sword-and-sandal films of the 1950s and 1960s—including forgotten gems such as Land of the PharaohsHelen of Troy, and The Egyptian—and their protean, ideologically charged representations of totalitarianism and democracy. He connects Cinemascope and other widescreen technologies to the architectural “glass curtain wall,” arguing that both represented the all-encompassing eye of American Enterprise. Lieber reminds us that until recently midcentury modern American architecture was reviled by architectural historians but celebrated by design enthusiasts, just as sword-and-sandal epics are alternately hailed as cult classics or derided as camp.

Lieber's argument is absorbing, exuberant, and comprehensive. Following Hannah Arendt, who looked for analogies in the classical past in order to understand midcentury's cultural crisis, Lieber terms the postwar reckoning of ancient civilizations and modern ideals “Flintstone modernism.” In new assessments of the major architects of the period, Lieber uncovers the cultural and political fantasies that animated or impinged on their work, offering surprising insights into Gordon Bunshaft's commonsense classicism; Eero Saarinen's architectural narratives of ersatz empire and Marcel Breuer's mania for Egyptian monoliths; and Edward Durell Stone's romantic “flights of fancy” and Philip Johnson's wicked brand of cynical cultural and sociopolitical critique.

Deftly moving among architecture, film, philosophy, and politics, Lieber illuminates the artifice that resulted from the conjunction of high style and mass-cultural values in postwar America.

Lieber, Jeffrey: - Jeffrey Lieber is a historian of art and architecture. He has taught at Harvard University, the New School, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His essays on Philip Johnson, Louis Kahn, and Hannah Arendt have appeared in such journals as Harvard Design Magazine, Design and Culture, and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. He also writes about film and regularly curates film series.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us