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Cold War culture

Name: Cold War culture
Author: Richard Alan Schwartz
ISBN: 9780816042647

by Richard Alan Schwartz

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Overview

For at least 45 years, the Cold War was the most important fact of American public life. It conditioned what people thought, said, wrote, watched, read and heard; it shaped politics, journalism, education, art, literature, all forms of popular entertainment and even children's toys. Cold War Culture, a concise A-to-Z guide to the expression of American Cold War sensibilities and the first popular reference work on the subject, records this inescapable influence. Hundreds of entries trace the Cold War's presence in forms and genres from journalism, cartoons and toys to detective novels, spy movies and TV westerns. The author provides overviews of important themes and covers significant careers and individual works of writers, directors, columnists, actors, musicians, political personalities and others.

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Editorials

School Library Journal

YA-A book that covers the various influences on American culture during the years 1945 to 1990. Schwartz organizes Cold War culture alphabetically within the following broad categories: art, cartoons, consumer goods, dance, film, games and toys, television and theater. Each of these categories has a broad general article as well as specific individual entries. For example, there is a long article on television that includes news, documentaries, dramas, debate shows, situation comedies, and more. Readers can then go to smaller entries on specific shows such as "Laugh-In." Those unfamiliar with the period must use the lengthier articles to access other material as the index is not comprehensive. Nonetheless, this reference source is easy to read and hard to put down as a browsing item. It will be particularly helpful to social-studies teachers looking to bring the era to life and those researching the Cold War.-Linda A. Vretos, West Springfield High School, Springfield, VA

Booknews

Begins the series with an encyclopedia citing movies, television, books, journalism, and other media artifacts and explaining how they influenced and were influenced by the east-west conflict they were produced and received during. Among the entries are Kurt Vonnegut's apocalyptic novel , exiled Cuban writer Roberto G. Fernandez, the film and television character Fu Manchu, the Australian science-fiction movie , and singer and film actor Paul Robeson. The articles for such broad topics as magazines and poets are several pages long; most are a page or less. Lightly illustrated. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.