Author Discusses TV's Influence on Baby Boomers

When television was first demonstrated in 1927, The New York Times heralded the momentous event with the headline "Like a Photo Come to Life." But it wasn't till the 1950s that the new medium was as "its most preoccupying, its most life-altering," says historian and Emmy Award-winning media critic Eric Burns in his new book, Invasion of the Mind Snatchers.

A chronicle of television's influence on the baby boomer generation, the first raised on TV, the book looks at both the promise of television as envisioned by its inventors and how that promise was both redefined and lost by the corporations who helped spread the technology.

On Monday, October 18, at 7:30 pm at Westport Library, Burns will talk about his new book and the TV's effect on politics, religion, race, and sex for a generation of young, impressionable viewers. Free and open to the public, the talk will take place in the Library's McManus Room, and books will be available for purchase and signing afterwards.

Burns is author of five other critically-acclaimed books, including The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol and The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco, both of which were named "Best of the Best" academic press books by the American Library Association. He is the former host of Fox News Channel's Fox News Watch and a former correspondent for NBC. He was also named one of the best writers in the history of broadcast journalism by the Washington Journalism Review.

For more information, check the Library's website, www.westportlibrary.org, or call 203-291-4800.