UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

The Political Culture of United States Imperialism, 1945–1966

Book Jacket: "Cold War Constructions" by C. G. Appy

Edited by Christian G. Appy

Pathbreaking essays on the political and cultural underpinnings of American Cold War policies

The end of the Cold War has inspired a wave of exciting new scholarship about the central international struggle in the decades following World War II. Dissatisfied with traditional diplomatic and military interpretations, historians have begun to investigate the crucial role that political culture played in shaping global conflicts. Cold War Constructions contributes to this reappraisal by illuminating the political and cultural assumptions underlying U.S. policies from the end of World War II to the mid-1960s. How were Cold War ideas and events shaped by American culture? How were they explained and promoted at home and around the world? And how did they vary from one geographical context to another? These are among the questions addressed in this collection of original essays.

Each contributor focuses on a specific site of Cold War contestation—Southeast Asia, India, Europe, Africa, Iran, Guatemala, and Cuba—and analyzes the impact of domestic political culture on that particular conflict. Cultural attitudes, practices, and values are examined through a range of topics and sources, from travel literature and Broadway musicals to philanthropic organizations and Time magazine. Together the essays shed new light on such major Cold War events as the Cuban Revolution, the CIA overthrow of governments in Iran and Guatemala, and the United States intervention in Vietnam.

Contributors include Christian G. Appy, Mark Bradley, James T. Fisher, John Foran, Kevin Gaines, Van Gosse, Christina Klein, Jonathan Nashel, Andrew J. Rotter, Penny M. Von Eschen, and Wendy Wall.

"A collection of original essays that explore the manner and means by which the Cold War was constructed and offer new and provocative insights into its bizarre and often brutal moments."

Marilyn Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990
"Innovative essays on Cold War culture. At a time when there is much 'buzz' about expanding the subject matter considered by historians of foreign relations and about informing discursive analysis with the problems of the 'real world,' this collection of essays actually delivers the goods."

Frank Costigliola, University of Connecticut

Christian G. Appy is associate professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam.

American Studies / Cultural Studies
352 pp., 4 illustrations
LC 99-37754
$60.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 1-55849-217-8
$24.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-218-6
2000
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A volume in the series Culture, Politics, and the Cold War

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