1956: The World in Revolt by Simon Hall

Review by Ian James Brydon

As I grow older the years seem to race by faster than ever, and it can be difficult to look back and pick out any one of them as being more significant than any of the others. Obviously, some stay in the mind more poignantly than others, perhaps as a consequence of personal involvement, and there are some such as 2016 in which it seemed that a far greater number of noted figures died than might usually be expected.

Other years become landmark for different reasons. David Hepworth identified 1971 as the single most significant year for rock and pop music (While I acknowledge his greater knowledge of the field, I would disagree, and might propose 1975, the year of Wish You Were Here and Physical Graffiti among other landmark albums, but I am straying from the point). Others have pointed to 1967 and the Summer of Love, or 1968 and the Prague Spring. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 marked the nadir of cold war posturing, and 1963 (significant to me as the year of my birth) brought the assassination of an American President in circumstances that have still never been adequately resolved. 

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