A Year That Changed Much

A Year That Changed Much

WASHINGTON -- Fifty years ago, on July 21, 1959, Grove Press won permission to publish D.H. Lawrence's novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover." Two days later, G.D. Searle, the pharmaceutical company, sought government approval for Enovid, the birth control pill. These two events, both welcome, were, however, pebbles that presaged the avalanche that swept away America's culture of restraint and reticence.

That change is recounted by Fred Kaplan, an MIT Ph.D. and cultural historian, in "1959: The Year Everything Changed," an intelligent book with a silly subtitle. There never has been a year -- or a...