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Laddar... The Culture of the Cold War (The American Moment)av Stephen J. Whitfield
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"Without the Cold War, what's the point of being an American?" As if in answer to this poignant question from John Updike's Rabbit at Rest, Stephen Whitfield examines the impact of the Cold War--and its dramatic ending--on American culture in an updated version of his highly acclaimed study. In a new epilogue to this second edition, he extends his analysis from the McCarthyism of the 1950s, including its effects on the American and European intelligensia, to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and beyond. Whitfield treats his subject matter with the eye of a historian, reminding the reader that the Cold War is now a thing of the past. His treatment underscores the importance of the Cold War to our national identity and forces the reader to ask, Where do we go from here? The question is especially crucial for the Cold War historian, Whitfield argues. His new epilogue is partly a guide for new historians to tackle the complexities of Cold War studies. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)306.0973Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Culture and Institutions Biography And History North America United StatesKlassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
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Whitfield writes, “Transposing the genuine evil that emanated from abroad to domestic politics, influential voices then magnified the danger that American Communism represented and made democratic norms seem like luxuries that the crisis could not permit. As liberal impulses became suspect, as sensitivities to constitutional safeguards were coarsened, the axis of American politics spun toward the primitive, the intolerant, the paranoid” (pg. 33). He continues, “The belief system that most middle-class Americans considered their birthright – the traditional commitment to competitive individualism in social life, to the liberal stress on rights in political life, and to private enterprise in economic life – was adapted to the crisis of the Cold War. An uncritical patriotism often shaped the interpretations of the past. Faith was strengthened in the institutions of authority as the best preservatives of national values, and the esteem for business achievements became perhaps the most common vindication of American life” (pg. 53-54). In this way, “Church membership and a highly favorable attitude toward religion became forms of affirming ‘the American way of life’ during the Cold War, especially since the Soviet Union and its allies officially subscribed to atheism” (pg. 83).
Discussing visual media, Whitfield writes, “The most striking characteristic of celluloid Communism, however, is not the Party’s contempt for liberals or its hypocrisy but its hardened criminality, its proclivity for the raw violence that also pervaded gangster pictures” (pg. 135). He continues, “Amplification of the Cold War consensus was especially apparent in television’s coverage of international relations. In the articulation of foreign policy, no one besides Eisenhower bestrode the video colossus more formidably than Secretary of State Dulles, who was given eighteen separate opportunities in less than seven years of office to report to viewers on the state of the planet” (pg. 156). Further, “Political censorship did not affect the theater. A metropolitan, generally liberal clientele supported Broadway, while off-Broadway appreciated whatever attention a right-wing picket line might provide” (pg. 180-181).
Whitfield concludes, “The culture of the Cold War decomposed when the moral distinction between East and West lost a bit of its sharpness, when American self-righteousness could be more readily punctured, when the activities of the two superpowers assumed greater symmetry” (pg. 205). ( )