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I can't buy the idea that the world was more peaceful in the 1950s. As a 90s kid born in 1987, I was shocked as I learned in my teens that the world in my childhood was not the happy camp I'd imagined from within the loving arms of my parents. As far as plane hijackings go, the first was in 1931; as gun ownership goes, most people don't walk around bragging about their guns so it's impossible for a child to gauge the national distribution and common purpose of firearms. And as far as more recent generations, they had to be influenced by someone -- probably the preceding generation, which created and raised them. The tranquility of the 50s is historically recognized as polite fiction, a reaction to the hardships of the Depression and World War II, and the precursor to numerous social revolutions in which the small children of the 50s participated as teens and adults a decade later.

Monica, California