The busybodies’ most terrifying dystopia

In our home library, we have the excellent Time-Life series “This Fabulous Century,” which chronicles decade by decade the events from 1870 through 1970.

The last book in the series, 1960-1970, is particularly interesting. As you can imagine, it covered much of the societal upheavals taking place during that tumultuous decade. Among much else, it chronicles the rise of the hippies and the tossing of social norms that characterized the 1950s.

But the volume has one interesting chapter entitled “Middle America...