Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
This book is a collection of 1-2 page essays, old photos and actual ads from the period covered by the Mad Men TV series. It takes character traits and incidents from the series and explains the 1950s and 1960s attitudes that substantiate them. A fan of Mad Men, the author shows us mainly how accurate the shows writers were. I found it interesting, but it's brief articles make it closer to an illustrated book of factoids. I picked this up because I am currently in the middle of my all too familiar Mad Men fever in the weeks leading up to a new season. I actually didn't know this book existed at all until very recently, despite the fact that it came out in 2010. It is a collection of essays, ostensibly using the show as a jumping off point, about culture, art, society in general during the 1960s. I think I was expecting it to be a lot more about the actual show than it was but that was probably my fault. Although I learned quite a bit about the world in which Mad Men takes place, especially in terms of advertising history, I wasn't all that impressed with the writing and I felt that this could have been just written about the 1960s in general without any ties to the characters or storylines on the show. In fact, every time the author tried to make the connection to the show, it seemed forced and a lot of what she writes about doesn't really have that much to do directly with the show. After awhile it felt a bit like reading someone's college thesis. Not that there's anything wrong with that but I don't know that this needed to be a book at all. It looks good though. The accompanying photos and artwork and the physical style of the book are attractive, glossy. I think Don Draper would have been able to sell this.
What do You think about Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America (2010)?
Popular culture and current events of the 1960s as they relate to the TV series Mad Men.
—kennedi
Scattered presentation, but contained some interesting analysis...
—DGV
Source: recommended by AmandaLibrary: 791.457 VargasC
—cloudsstarsrain
