All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America

The birth of rock 'n roll ignited a firestorm of controversy—one critic called it "musical riots put to a switchblade beat"—but if it generated much sound and fury, what, if anything, did it signify?

As Glenn Altschuler reveals in All Shook Up, the rise of rock 'n roll—and the outraged reception to it—in fact can tell us a lot about the values of the United States in the 1950s, a decade that saw a great struggle for the control of popular culture. Altschuler shows, in particular, how rock's...