David Halberstam's amazing 1993 book The Fifties was written to be a comprehensive document—not of a single decade, but of an American epoch that began with the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima and ended with John F. Kennedy's election to the presidency. At 800 pages, it's a massive, thoroughly researched, incredibly detailed account of American postwar political, consumer, and popular culture. Adapting it to television might seem an almost impossibly large job, and the result takes up six tapes and six and a half hours of viewing time. But it's worth every minute. The years from 1945 to 1950, in addition to being a time of massive social change, also saw the first real explosion of mass media, and this series combines imagery from newsreel footage; early TV news broadcasts and advertising; the last wave of great and abundant photojournalism; and even the then-new phenomenon of home movies with the standard documentary devices of interviews and expert accounts to form a well-rounded picture. By deviating from Halberstam's more chronological approach and addressing separate issues in separate episodes, the material becomes more digestible without becoming substantially diluted. The Fifties effectively impresses upon the viewer the importance of the era in creating an enduring American mindset: increasingly suburban, middle-class, self-important, slightly paranoid, sexually repressed, socially conservative, reliably materialistic. And it does so in a fashion that leaves the viewer feeling that there's more to be learned, while adequately covering all the most essential points. This is an important time in American history, and the producers of this documentary have done both the era and Halberstam justice.