Introduction: the origins of cool
Lester Young and the birth of cool
Humphrey Bogart and the birth of noir cool from the Great Depression
Albert Camus and the birth of existential cool from the idea of rebellion (and the blues)
Billie Holiday and Simone de Beauvoir: toward a postwar cool for women
Cool convergences, 1950: jazz, noir, existentialism
A generational interlude: postwar II (1953-1963) and the shift in cool
Kerouac and the cool mind: jazz and zen
From noir cool to Vegas cool: swinging into prosperity with Frank Sinatra
American rebel cool: Brando, Dean, Elvis
Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis sound out cool individuality
Hip versus cool in the Fugitive kind (1960) and Paris blues
Lorraine Hansberry and the end of postwar cool
Epilogue: the many lives of postwar cool.
