Retro: the Culture of Revival
"Shanana and the Woodstock Generation"
"As Voltaire noted, history does not change, but what we want from it does." Guffey, p 9
The whole book is worth reading, and will introduce you to many 20th century styles and critical movements, particularly those that have influenced fashion and interior design. They still do, in fact.
But we'll concentrate on these pages. Here's a good order in which to read them.
Page readings:
9-12 **What the word "retro" seems to mean now. Elizabeth Guffey has made "retro" hers the way Susan Sontag expanded the term "camp"
**98-112 Inventing the Fifties
**113-117 The Fifties was completely a myth
*48-49 the useful word "camp" and who Susan Sontag is
22-25 Disney's Tomorrowland and how it aged
152-159 "retro Futurism" follows up on Disney and into Star Wars
**160 The Invention of History
161-166 Conclusion, summary
*On page 161 *Scher's Law funny and true
Also of local interest: 57-65 the Fillmore Posters and the San Francisco Hippie aesthetic style was a retro version of Art Nouveau and Art Deco (useful styles to know)