How long does it take to read The Fifties?
The Fifties by David Halberstam takes about 14 hours 49 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 14 hours 49 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1993. 808 pages, about 222,200 words.
30 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 24 hours 41 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 14 hours 49 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 9 hours 16 minutes |
The page count is the median across 7 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the ten years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon, but also of Harley Earl, who put fins on cars; Dick and Mac McDonald and Ray Kroc, who mass-produced the American hamburger; Kemmons Wilson, who placed his Holiday Inns along the nation's roadsides; U-2 pilot Gary Francis Powers; Grace Metalious, who wrote Peyton Place; and "Goody" Pincus, who led the team that invented the Pill.
Subjects: Politics and government, Social life and customs, Economic conditions, Popular culture, History, Nineteen fifties
