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Significant Books and Music of the Century, Year by Year
1959 was the year that Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states; the Dalai Lama fled to India after the Chinese crushed a Tibetan uprising; engineers from Texas Instruments invented the microchip; the Barbie doll was introduced; and Cadillac tailfins reached their max.


Significant Book of 1959:
William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch

BOOK Burroughs's novel depicts an addict's descent into hell, as he travels from New York to Tangiers to Interzone, a nightmarish wasteland where good and evil vie for control of humanity. A scathing diatribe on the addictions and hypocrisy in American life. "A masterpiece."
--Newsweek

  Significant Music of 1959:
 Miles Davis's Kind of Blue

BOOK Trumpeter Miles Davis, leading an all-star band including saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley and pianist Bill Evans, recorded KIND OF BLUE, a work that signals the use of modal improvisation and is arguably the most enduring of all jazz albums.




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