This could have been a really good book if it was written by anybody else. The sections where Bryson writes about his own memories of growing up in the '50s — T.V., T.V. dinners, toys, school, etc. — were enjoyable. About half the book, however, was about what was happening in the world at that time. Some of this, some context, would have been good. But Bryson selects his information with a liberal bias and interprets it with a 21st century liberal slant that was annoying and, often, wrong. In addition, if he is to be believed, his family in general and he in particular, were smarter, more enlightened and more advanced in their thinking than anybody else. I simply don't believe most of his stories about what he and his friends did. All this was peppered with unnecessary foul language and Bryson's usual crudities.