Robbie Lieberman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265390
- eISBN:
- 9780191760440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265390.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
At the height of the McCarthy era, a period that marked the low point of both communism and peace activism in the United States, the communist left continued to promote its ideas about peace through ...
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At the height of the McCarthy era, a period that marked the low point of both communism and peace activism in the United States, the communist left continued to promote its ideas about peace through song. Beginning with the Progressive party campaign of 1948, communists and their supporters sang their opposition to U.S. Cold War policies and promoted brotherhood among men, usually in those (male) terms. Intense anticommunism limited the impact of songs written and disseminated by ‘people's artists’ in the early Cold War years. Nonetheless, their work had an impact in the long run despite the repressive era in which they sang. Through hootenannies and records, and in the pages of publications such as Sing Out!they kept alive a movement culture that influenced the next generation of musicians, whose peace songs reached a popular audience in the 1960s.Less
At the height of the McCarthy era, a period that marked the low point of both communism and peace activism in the United States, the communist left continued to promote its ideas about peace through song. Beginning with the Progressive party campaign of 1948, communists and their supporters sang their opposition to U.S. Cold War policies and promoted brotherhood among men, usually in those (male) terms. Intense anticommunism limited the impact of songs written and disseminated by ‘people's artists’ in the early Cold War years. Nonetheless, their work had an impact in the long run despite the repressive era in which they sang. Through hootenannies and records, and in the pages of publications such as Sing Out!they kept alive a movement culture that influenced the next generation of musicians, whose peace songs reached a popular audience in the 1960s.
Angela M. Lahr
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195314489
- eISBN:
- 9780199872077
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314489.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The dawning of the nuclear age brought premillennial speculation about the imminent end of the world that altered the evangelical assessment of the relationship between religion and science. ...
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The dawning of the nuclear age brought premillennial speculation about the imminent end of the world that altered the evangelical assessment of the relationship between religion and science. Eschatological beliefs about the potential impact of nuclear weapons blended with secular apocalypticism that even influenced American Cold War foreign policy. Simultaneously, evangelicalism's embrace of anticommunism in the early Cold War helped lead to the subculture's integration into the mainstream culture.Less
The dawning of the nuclear age brought premillennial speculation about the imminent end of the world that altered the evangelical assessment of the relationship between religion and science. Eschatological beliefs about the potential impact of nuclear weapons blended with secular apocalypticism that even influenced American Cold War foreign policy. Simultaneously, evangelicalism's embrace of anticommunism in the early Cold War helped lead to the subculture's integration into the mainstream culture.
Andrew N. Rubin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154152
- eISBN:
- 9781400842179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154152.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This introductory chapter discusses several iterations of militarized Orientalism and the function that it has continued to serve in military zones of rapid cultural translation. Such instances not ...
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This introductory chapter discusses several iterations of militarized Orientalism and the function that it has continued to serve in military zones of rapid cultural translation. Such instances not only show how brazen the connection between power and knowledge has become in our culture, but also evince how profoundly the modalities for understanding have become instruments of power. The chapter briefly traces the genealogy of this view in the early years of the Cold War and describes the formidable structures and conjunctures of cultural domination, as well as the cultural mechanisms by which the United States rearticulated the discourse of British colonialism through the institutions and discourses of anticommunism.Less
This introductory chapter discusses several iterations of militarized Orientalism and the function that it has continued to serve in military zones of rapid cultural translation. Such instances not only show how brazen the connection between power and knowledge has become in our culture, but also evince how profoundly the modalities for understanding have become instruments of power. The chapter briefly traces the genealogy of this view in the early years of the Cold War and describes the formidable structures and conjunctures of cultural domination, as well as the cultural mechanisms by which the United States rearticulated the discourse of British colonialism through the institutions and discourses of anticommunism.
Julian E. Zelizer
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691150734
- eISBN:
- 9781400841899
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691150734.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter challenges the prevailing framework that has shaped most of the literature on American conservatism and explores issues that need to be addressed in order to fundamentally rethink the ...
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This chapter challenges the prevailing framework that has shaped most of the literature on American conservatism and explores issues that need to be addressed in order to fundamentally rethink the history of American conservatism. Historians differ in their interpretations of the history and evolution of conservatism in contemporary politics. Some emphasized the importance of race in defining conservative objectives and in explaining their electoral appeal, while others objected to claims about Southern Exceptionalism while agreeing on the centrality of a racial backlash. A different cohort of scholars stressed the importance of anticommunism. After analyzing the fragmented nature of the scholarship of conservatism and the challenges encountered by conservatives when dealing with policy change, the chapter examines how conservatism unfolded in a dialectical fashion with liberalism rather than as a replacement of liberalism.Less
This chapter challenges the prevailing framework that has shaped most of the literature on American conservatism and explores issues that need to be addressed in order to fundamentally rethink the history of American conservatism. Historians differ in their interpretations of the history and evolution of conservatism in contemporary politics. Some emphasized the importance of race in defining conservative objectives and in explaining their electoral appeal, while others objected to claims about Southern Exceptionalism while agreeing on the centrality of a racial backlash. A different cohort of scholars stressed the importance of anticommunism. After analyzing the fragmented nature of the scholarship of conservatism and the challenges encountered by conservatives when dealing with policy change, the chapter examines how conservatism unfolded in a dialectical fashion with liberalism rather than as a replacement of liberalism.
Erin M. Kempker
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252041976
- eISBN:
- 9780252050701
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041976.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This book maps the interplay of conservative and feminist women in Indiana during the second half of the twentieth century and proposes an alternative framework for understanding the second wave ...
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This book maps the interplay of conservative and feminist women in Indiana during the second half of the twentieth century and proposes an alternative framework for understanding the second wave feminist movement. The central theme is that rightwing women’s understanding of one-worldism--a conspiracy theory refined by grassroots anticommunists during the height of the Cold War--shaped conservative women’s response to the second wave feminist movement and circumscribed feminist activism. Over the course of the postwar era, anticommunist organizations like the Minute Women of the U.S.A., Pro America, and the John Birch Society provided a forum for rightwing women to develop their understanding of related forces pushing for a “one-world,” totalitarian supra-government, forces they described as treasonous. While communists often were lumped under the “one-worlder” category, the two were not synonymous. In literature rightwing women described a spectrum of subversion that included a fifth column but also those advocating domestic cooperation through federal regionalism, gender equality as opposed to gender difference, and internationalists advocating stronger authority for the United Nations. The book documents the work of Hoosier feminists to accomplish their goals, especially the Equal Rights Amendment, in a hostile political environment and the work of rightwing women to counter the threat of internationalism or one-worldism, culminating in a showdown at the 1977 International Women’s Year celebration.Less
This book maps the interplay of conservative and feminist women in Indiana during the second half of the twentieth century and proposes an alternative framework for understanding the second wave feminist movement. The central theme is that rightwing women’s understanding of one-worldism--a conspiracy theory refined by grassroots anticommunists during the height of the Cold War--shaped conservative women’s response to the second wave feminist movement and circumscribed feminist activism. Over the course of the postwar era, anticommunist organizations like the Minute Women of the U.S.A., Pro America, and the John Birch Society provided a forum for rightwing women to develop their understanding of related forces pushing for a “one-world,” totalitarian supra-government, forces they described as treasonous. While communists often were lumped under the “one-worlder” category, the two were not synonymous. In literature rightwing women described a spectrum of subversion that included a fifth column but also those advocating domestic cooperation through federal regionalism, gender equality as opposed to gender difference, and internationalists advocating stronger authority for the United Nations. The book documents the work of Hoosier feminists to accomplish their goals, especially the Equal Rights Amendment, in a hostile political environment and the work of rightwing women to counter the threat of internationalism or one-worldism, culminating in a showdown at the 1977 International Women’s Year celebration.
Landon R. Y. Storrs
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691153964
- eISBN:
- 9781400845255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691153964.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter looks at key figures in the emerging anticommunist network and analyzes two early episodes: the Smith Committee attack on the National Labor Relations Board and its allies, and the Dies ...
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This chapter looks at key figures in the emerging anticommunist network and analyzes two early episodes: the Smith Committee attack on the National Labor Relations Board and its allies, and the Dies Committee attack on the consumer movement, especially the League of Women Shoppers and the Office of Price Administration. The power of the labor movement in stimulating the reaction against the New Deal is well known, but the consumer movement should be recognized as another major trigger. Women were important in the ascendance of both industrial unionism and organized consumerism, and conservatives highlighted women's role in an effort to undermine public confidence in those movements and their allied government agencies.Less
This chapter looks at key figures in the emerging anticommunist network and analyzes two early episodes: the Smith Committee attack on the National Labor Relations Board and its allies, and the Dies Committee attack on the consumer movement, especially the League of Women Shoppers and the Office of Price Administration. The power of the labor movement in stimulating the reaction against the New Deal is well known, but the consumer movement should be recognized as another major trigger. Women were important in the ascendance of both industrial unionism and organized consumerism, and conservatives highlighted women's role in an effort to undermine public confidence in those movements and their allied government agencies.
Landon R. Y. Storrs
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691153964
- eISBN:
- 9781400845255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691153964.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines the antifeminism of key instigators of the Second Red Scare: staff members of congressional investigative committees and the conservative journalists with whom they cooperated. ...
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This chapter examines the antifeminism of key instigators of the Second Red Scare: staff members of congressional investigative committees and the conservative journalists with whom they cooperated. Their public statements and private correspondence indicate that they associated communism with men's loss of control over women's labor and sexual conduct. For them, the need to stabilize white male supremacy was one reason to oppose communism. Antifeminism, an objective in and of itself, was also a means to other objectives. Leading anticommunists deployed antifeminism, just as they did homophobia, to generate popular enthusiasm for their attacks on the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.Less
This chapter examines the antifeminism of key instigators of the Second Red Scare: staff members of congressional investigative committees and the conservative journalists with whom they cooperated. Their public statements and private correspondence indicate that they associated communism with men's loss of control over women's labor and sexual conduct. For them, the need to stabilize white male supremacy was one reason to oppose communism. Antifeminism, an objective in and of itself, was also a means to other objectives. Leading anticommunists deployed antifeminism, just as they did homophobia, to generate popular enthusiasm for their attacks on the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.
Christopher P. Loss
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148274
- eISBN:
- 9781400840052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148274.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter depicts the challenges posed to higher education during the Cold War. Despite suffering a torrent of anticommunist attacks—and more than a few casualties—higher education also played a ...
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This chapter depicts the challenges posed to higher education during the Cold War. Despite suffering a torrent of anticommunist attacks—and more than a few casualties—higher education also played a leading role in the government's battle for hearts and minds in the 1950s. At home and abroad the American state deployed education in order to produce democratic citizens and then used public opinion polls to evaluate the integrity of the production process. Obsessively tracked during the Cold War, “public opinion” offered policymakers and educational elites access to the American people's collective psychological adjustment and mental health, to their intellectual fitness and their knowledge of the bipolar Cold War world in which they lived.Less
This chapter depicts the challenges posed to higher education during the Cold War. Despite suffering a torrent of anticommunist attacks—and more than a few casualties—higher education also played a leading role in the government's battle for hearts and minds in the 1950s. At home and abroad the American state deployed education in order to produce democratic citizens and then used public opinion polls to evaluate the integrity of the production process. Obsessively tracked during the Cold War, “public opinion” offered policymakers and educational elites access to the American people's collective psychological adjustment and mental health, to their intellectual fitness and their knowledge of the bipolar Cold War world in which they lived.
Michelle M. Nickerson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691121840
- eISBN:
- 9781400842209
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691121840.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines how women developed forms of antistatist protest in the first half of the twentieth century that posed an oppositional relationship between the family and government. By the ...
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This chapter examines how women developed forms of antistatist protest in the first half of the twentieth century that posed an oppositional relationship between the family and government. By the 1950s, anticommunism and antistatism became widespread mechanisms of political protest for women on the right much as peace activism and welfare work came to seem natural for women on the left. But unlike the later generation of Cold Warrior women who exerted themselves most forcefully through local politics, conservative women of the early twentieth century made their strongest impact by attacking that national progressive state. They also demonized “internationalism” as the handmaiden to communism, discovering another foe that women's position in the family obliged them to oppose. Consequently, the earliest generation of conservative organizations adopted the habit of calling themselves “patriotic” groups to contrast their own nationalist sentiment with the internationalism of progressives, which they equated with communism. This pattern continued into the post-World War II era.Less
This chapter examines how women developed forms of antistatist protest in the first half of the twentieth century that posed an oppositional relationship between the family and government. By the 1950s, anticommunism and antistatism became widespread mechanisms of political protest for women on the right much as peace activism and welfare work came to seem natural for women on the left. But unlike the later generation of Cold Warrior women who exerted themselves most forcefully through local politics, conservative women of the early twentieth century made their strongest impact by attacking that national progressive state. They also demonized “internationalism” as the handmaiden to communism, discovering another foe that women's position in the family obliged them to oppose. Consequently, the earliest generation of conservative organizations adopted the habit of calling themselves “patriotic” groups to contrast their own nationalist sentiment with the internationalism of progressives, which they equated with communism. This pattern continued into the post-World War II era.
Michelle M. Nickerson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691121840
- eISBN:
- 9781400842209
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691121840.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter documents how activism in education politics turned the attention of conservative women to professional psychology as a logical next target. Fears of “brainwashing” segued into fears of ...
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This chapter documents how activism in education politics turned the attention of conservative women to professional psychology as a logical next target. Fears of “brainwashing” segued into fears of mental health professionals and the policy making they promoted in Washington, D.C., resulting in conservative protest of an amorphous “mental health establishment.” Anticommunist activists characterized psychology as a dangerous medicine that could be used to manipulate thought and, by extension, political will. Although conservative intellectuals scoffed at the conspiracy theories circulated by the “hysterical” housewives, the women's arguments nevertheless found their way into criticism articulated by scholars and politicians by the mid-1960s.Less
This chapter documents how activism in education politics turned the attention of conservative women to professional psychology as a logical next target. Fears of “brainwashing” segued into fears of mental health professionals and the policy making they promoted in Washington, D.C., resulting in conservative protest of an amorphous “mental health establishment.” Anticommunist activists characterized psychology as a dangerous medicine that could be used to manipulate thought and, by extension, political will. Although conservative intellectuals scoffed at the conspiracy theories circulated by the “hysterical” housewives, the women's arguments nevertheless found their way into criticism articulated by scholars and politicians by the mid-1960s.
Michelle M. Nickerson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691121840
- eISBN:
- 9781400842209
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691121840.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter studies women's influence on conservatism as it entered the movement phase in the early 1960s. Even as they denounced the mass politics they feared, conservatives came to recognize the ...
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This chapter studies women's influence on conservatism as it entered the movement phase in the early 1960s. Even as they denounced the mass politics they feared, conservatives came to recognize the necessity of stimulating a popular consciousness on the right to thwart momentum growing on the left, especially among youths. The anticommunist crusade that had been building among activists over the 1950s became a natural source from which to draw the necessary vigor to generate a movement, which leaders explicitly recognized. Women activists, already a central part of this crusade, became an essential part of the coalescing conservative movement. They formed chapters of the John Birch Society, a national organization that self-consciously sought to replicate leftist tactics to thwart “communism,” which it conflated with all liberal movements. Women opened “patriotic” bookstores in their neighborhoods that featured their favorite conservative authors. The chapter ends with the presidential election of 1964, when the campaign of Barry Goldwater, which incorporated conservative women in new ways, came to be known as a movement.Less
This chapter studies women's influence on conservatism as it entered the movement phase in the early 1960s. Even as they denounced the mass politics they feared, conservatives came to recognize the necessity of stimulating a popular consciousness on the right to thwart momentum growing on the left, especially among youths. The anticommunist crusade that had been building among activists over the 1950s became a natural source from which to draw the necessary vigor to generate a movement, which leaders explicitly recognized. Women activists, already a central part of this crusade, became an essential part of the coalescing conservative movement. They formed chapters of the John Birch Society, a national organization that self-consciously sought to replicate leftist tactics to thwart “communism,” which it conflated with all liberal movements. Women opened “patriotic” bookstores in their neighborhoods that featured their favorite conservative authors. The chapter ends with the presidential election of 1964, when the campaign of Barry Goldwater, which incorporated conservative women in new ways, came to be known as a movement.
Gonda Van Steen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199572885
- eISBN:
- 9780191722905
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572885.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The introduction to this book explains the historical and political context in which the productions of ancient drama originated on the prison islands of the Greek Civil War in the late 1940s and ...
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The introduction to this book explains the historical and political context in which the productions of ancient drama originated on the prison islands of the Greek Civil War in the late 1940s and through the 1950s (and thus against the backdrop of the international Cold War). It discusses the unusual cultural phenomenon of theater on these prison islands, introduces the various source materials and methodological issues (including the problem of the scarcity of source materials and the questions posed by oral testimonies), and provides a preview of the subsequent chapters.Less
The introduction to this book explains the historical and political context in which the productions of ancient drama originated on the prison islands of the Greek Civil War in the late 1940s and through the 1950s (and thus against the backdrop of the international Cold War). It discusses the unusual cultural phenomenon of theater on these prison islands, introduces the various source materials and methodological issues (including the problem of the scarcity of source materials and the questions posed by oral testimonies), and provides a preview of the subsequent chapters.
Gonda Van Steen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199572885
- eISBN:
- 9780191722905
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572885.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter 2 discusses the productions of ancient drama that were staged on Makronisos: it presents a diptych of two productions that reveal different levels of involvement on the part of actors, ...
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Chapter 2 discusses the productions of ancient drama that were staged on Makronisos: it presents a diptych of two productions that reveal different levels of involvement on the part of actors, artists, inmate observers—and the camp keepers. Our analysis of the Antigone production that the authorities both encouraged and advertised is followed by a discussion of a more “genuine” Philoctetes (both staged in 1948). The chapter also concentrates on the regime's attempted monopoly on language and culture and on its fascist‐style use of the classics for propaganda purposes. The chapter unmasks the dynamics with which the Right manipulated the terms of political and moral “salvation” and religious and civic restoration. Theater became another means to the prison administration's end of “forging” a public consensus about the “rehabilitation” work that it was directing on Makronisos.Less
Chapter 2 discusses the productions of ancient drama that were staged on Makronisos: it presents a diptych of two productions that reveal different levels of involvement on the part of actors, artists, inmate observers—and the camp keepers. Our analysis of the Antigone production that the authorities both encouraged and advertised is followed by a discussion of a more “genuine” Philoctetes (both staged in 1948). The chapter also concentrates on the regime's attempted monopoly on language and culture and on its fascist‐style use of the classics for propaganda purposes. The chapter unmasks the dynamics with which the Right manipulated the terms of political and moral “salvation” and religious and civic restoration. Theater became another means to the prison administration's end of “forging” a public consensus about the “rehabilitation” work that it was directing on Makronisos.
Colleen Doody
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037276
- eISBN:
- 9780252094446
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037276.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This book locates the roots of American conservatism in a city that was a nexus of labor and industry in postwar America. Drawing on archival research focusing on Detroit, the book shows how conflict ...
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This book locates the roots of American conservatism in a city that was a nexus of labor and industry in postwar America. Drawing on archival research focusing on Detroit, the book shows how conflict over business values and opposition to labor, anticommunism, racial animosity, and religion led to the development of a conservative ethos in the aftermath of World War II. Using Detroit—with its large population of African American and Catholic workers, strong union presence, and starkly segregated urban landscape—as a case study, the book articulates a nuanced understanding of anticommunism during the Red Scare. Looking beyond national politics, the book focuses on key debates occurring at the local level among a wide variety of common citizens. In examining this city's social and political fabric, it illustrates that domestic anticommunism was a cohesive, multifaceted ideology that arose less from Soviet ideological incursion than from tensions within the American public.Less
This book locates the roots of American conservatism in a city that was a nexus of labor and industry in postwar America. Drawing on archival research focusing on Detroit, the book shows how conflict over business values and opposition to labor, anticommunism, racial animosity, and religion led to the development of a conservative ethos in the aftermath of World War II. Using Detroit—with its large population of African American and Catholic workers, strong union presence, and starkly segregated urban landscape—as a case study, the book articulates a nuanced understanding of anticommunism during the Red Scare. Looking beyond national politics, the book focuses on key debates occurring at the local level among a wide variety of common citizens. In examining this city's social and political fabric, it illustrates that domestic anticommunism was a cohesive, multifaceted ideology that arose less from Soviet ideological incursion than from tensions within the American public.
Robert Miklitsch
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040689
- eISBN:
- 9780252099120
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040689.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Given that 1955, the dead center of “the Fifties,” was the year in which RKO, the “house of noir,” was sold to Desilu Studios, the home of I Love Lucy, it would appear on the face of things that ...
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Given that 1955, the dead center of “the Fifties,” was the year in which RKO, the “house of noir,” was sold to Desilu Studios, the home of I Love Lucy, it would appear on the face of things that classic American film noir was good and dead by midcentury. But despite the received critical wisdom about the genre, The Red and the Black proposes that the grand, rise-and-fall narrative about classic noir misprizes the way in which, via various subgenres (melodrama, semi-documentary, etc.), it dramatizes complex notions about gender and sexuality, race and family, nation and homosexuality. The clichés about 1950s noir also misrecognize the way in which, via new media and technologies (color, television, 3-D, widescreen), it effects a dynamic segue between 1940s expressionist noir and early, “modernist” neo-noir. Since the negative, stereotypical determination of Cold War noir tends to be a function of generalities about the genre and the period, The Red and the Black focuses less on “the Fifties” than on the performative contradictions of particular films and the representative cultural-political formations—anticommunism, the atomic bomb, and new media/technologies--of which they are singular “examples.” In fine, in “the Fifties,” in the age of TV and three-dimension, the femme fatale and the nuclear family, Cinemascope and Technicolor, the A-bomb and McCarthyism, the blacklist and “reds under the beds,” ‘50s noir not only existed but flourished.Less
Given that 1955, the dead center of “the Fifties,” was the year in which RKO, the “house of noir,” was sold to Desilu Studios, the home of I Love Lucy, it would appear on the face of things that classic American film noir was good and dead by midcentury. But despite the received critical wisdom about the genre, The Red and the Black proposes that the grand, rise-and-fall narrative about classic noir misprizes the way in which, via various subgenres (melodrama, semi-documentary, etc.), it dramatizes complex notions about gender and sexuality, race and family, nation and homosexuality. The clichés about 1950s noir also misrecognize the way in which, via new media and technologies (color, television, 3-D, widescreen), it effects a dynamic segue between 1940s expressionist noir and early, “modernist” neo-noir. Since the negative, stereotypical determination of Cold War noir tends to be a function of generalities about the genre and the period, The Red and the Black focuses less on “the Fifties” than on the performative contradictions of particular films and the representative cultural-political formations—anticommunism, the atomic bomb, and new media/technologies--of which they are singular “examples.” In fine, in “the Fifties,” in the age of TV and three-dimension, the femme fatale and the nuclear family, Cinemascope and Technicolor, the A-bomb and McCarthyism, the blacklist and “reds under the beds,” ‘50s noir not only existed but flourished.
James Zeigler
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496802385
- eISBN:
- 9781496802439
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496802385.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
A cultural rhetoric study of how the discourse of anticommunism has influenced the politics of race in the United States, this book observes that the Cold War Red Scare contributed to the end of ...
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A cultural rhetoric study of how the discourse of anticommunism has influenced the politics of race in the United States, this book observes that the Cold War Red Scare contributed to the end of state-sanctioned racial segregation in the American South but provided for the survival of systemic anti-black racism after the supposed death of Jim Crow. Describing the relationship between the Second Red Scare and the African American civil rights movement as a pernicious ambivalence that ultimately harmed the black freedom struggle, it demonstrates how the discourse of Cold War anticommunism worked to render U.S. public culture oblivious to the fundamental convergence of racial discrimination and class exploitation. The Cold War may have been an asset to demands for equal political recognition for all American citizens regardless of race, but the anticommunist public culture labeled any critique of capitalism as un-American. Consequently, the postwar Red Scare impeded black American claims for socioeconomic reparations that were necessary to realize the aspirations of the civil rights movement and to satisfy democratic principles of social justice. While presenting a reconstruction of the normative rhetorical power of Cold War anticommunism, the book also examines how intellectuals working in a tradition of black radicalism informed by Marxism engaged critically with the culture of Cold War America to show how anti-racist political initiatives would only succeed finally to nullify white privilege if they were informed by anti-capitalist convictions and activism.Less
A cultural rhetoric study of how the discourse of anticommunism has influenced the politics of race in the United States, this book observes that the Cold War Red Scare contributed to the end of state-sanctioned racial segregation in the American South but provided for the survival of systemic anti-black racism after the supposed death of Jim Crow. Describing the relationship between the Second Red Scare and the African American civil rights movement as a pernicious ambivalence that ultimately harmed the black freedom struggle, it demonstrates how the discourse of Cold War anticommunism worked to render U.S. public culture oblivious to the fundamental convergence of racial discrimination and class exploitation. The Cold War may have been an asset to demands for equal political recognition for all American citizens regardless of race, but the anticommunist public culture labeled any critique of capitalism as un-American. Consequently, the postwar Red Scare impeded black American claims for socioeconomic reparations that were necessary to realize the aspirations of the civil rights movement and to satisfy democratic principles of social justice. While presenting a reconstruction of the normative rhetorical power of Cold War anticommunism, the book also examines how intellectuals working in a tradition of black radicalism informed by Marxism engaged critically with the culture of Cold War America to show how anti-racist political initiatives would only succeed finally to nullify white privilege if they were informed by anti-capitalist convictions and activism.
Jessica M. Chapman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450617
- eISBN:
- 9780801467417
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450617.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem organized an election to depose chief-of-state Bao Dai, after which he proclaimed himself the first president of the newly created Republic of Vietnam. The United States ...
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In 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem organized an election to depose chief-of-state Bao Dai, after which he proclaimed himself the first president of the newly created Republic of Vietnam. The United States sanctioned the results of this election, which was widely condemned as fraudulent, and provided substantial economic aid and advice to the RVN. Because of this, Diem is often viewed as a mere puppet of the United States, in service of its Cold War geopolitical strategy. That narrative, the book contends, grossly oversimplifies the complexity of South Vietnam's domestic politics and, indeed, Diem's own political savvy. The book offers a detailed account of three crucial years, 1953–1956, during which a new Vietnamese political order was established in the south. It is, in large part, a history of Diem's political ascent as he managed to subdue the former Emperor Bao Dai, the armed Hoa Hao and Cao Dai religious organizations, and the Binh Xuyen crime organization. The book shows Diem to be an engaged leader whose personalist ideology influenced his vision for the new South Vietnamese state, but also shaped the policies that would spell his demise. Washington's support for Diem because of his staunch anticommunism encouraged him to employ oppressive measures to suppress dissent, thereby contributing to the alienation of his constituency, and helped inspire the organized opposition to his government that would emerge by the late 1950s and eventually lead to the Vietnam War.Less
In 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem organized an election to depose chief-of-state Bao Dai, after which he proclaimed himself the first president of the newly created Republic of Vietnam. The United States sanctioned the results of this election, which was widely condemned as fraudulent, and provided substantial economic aid and advice to the RVN. Because of this, Diem is often viewed as a mere puppet of the United States, in service of its Cold War geopolitical strategy. That narrative, the book contends, grossly oversimplifies the complexity of South Vietnam's domestic politics and, indeed, Diem's own political savvy. The book offers a detailed account of three crucial years, 1953–1956, during which a new Vietnamese political order was established in the south. It is, in large part, a history of Diem's political ascent as he managed to subdue the former Emperor Bao Dai, the armed Hoa Hao and Cao Dai religious organizations, and the Binh Xuyen crime organization. The book shows Diem to be an engaged leader whose personalist ideology influenced his vision for the new South Vietnamese state, but also shaped the policies that would spell his demise. Washington's support for Diem because of his staunch anticommunism encouraged him to employ oppressive measures to suppress dissent, thereby contributing to the alienation of his constituency, and helped inspire the organized opposition to his government that would emerge by the late 1950s and eventually lead to the Vietnam War.
Kenton Clymer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801454486
- eISBN:
- 9781501701023
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801454486.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In 2012, Barack Obama became the first U.S. president ever to visit Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. This official state visit marked a new period in the diplomatic relationship between the United ...
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In 2012, Barack Obama became the first U.S. president ever to visit Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. This official state visit marked a new period in the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Burma/Myanmar, which this book examines. From the challenges of decolonization and heightened nationalist activities that emerged in the wake of World War II to the Cold War concern with domino states to the rise of human rights policy in the 1980s and beyond, the book demonstrates how Burma/Myanmar has fit into the broad patterns of U.S. foreign policy and yet has never been fully integrated into diplomatic efforts in the region of Southeast Asia. When Burma achieved independence in 1948, the United States feared that the country might be the first Southeast Asian nation to fall to the communists, and it embarked on a series of efforts to prevent this. The book explores attitudes toward Burma (later Myanmar) from anticommunism during the Cold War to interventions to stop drug trafficking to debates in Congress, the White House, and the Department of State over how to respond to the emergence of the opposition movement in the late 1980s. The book concludes with President Obama's visits in 2012 and 2014, and visits to the United States by Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein, which marked the establishment of a new, warmer relationship with a relatively open Myanmar.Less
In 2012, Barack Obama became the first U.S. president ever to visit Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. This official state visit marked a new period in the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Burma/Myanmar, which this book examines. From the challenges of decolonization and heightened nationalist activities that emerged in the wake of World War II to the Cold War concern with domino states to the rise of human rights policy in the 1980s and beyond, the book demonstrates how Burma/Myanmar has fit into the broad patterns of U.S. foreign policy and yet has never been fully integrated into diplomatic efforts in the region of Southeast Asia. When Burma achieved independence in 1948, the United States feared that the country might be the first Southeast Asian nation to fall to the communists, and it embarked on a series of efforts to prevent this. The book explores attitudes toward Burma (later Myanmar) from anticommunism during the Cold War to interventions to stop drug trafficking to debates in Congress, the White House, and the Department of State over how to respond to the emergence of the opposition movement in the late 1980s. The book concludes with President Obama's visits in 2012 and 2014, and visits to the United States by Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein, which marked the establishment of a new, warmer relationship with a relatively open Myanmar.
Richard Harris
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195373929
- eISBN:
- 9780199852291
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195373929.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Environmentalism, born in the milieu of activism and protest during the 1960s, aimed not only to save the ecosystem but also to open up administrative and policy processes to more democratic impulses ...
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Environmentalism, born in the milieu of activism and protest during the 1960s, aimed not only to save the ecosystem but also to open up administrative and policy processes to more democratic impulses that proved hostile to individualism, liberty, and property rights. For conservatives like Reagan, the fundamental challenge of environmental policy therefore lay not in business complaints about rising compliance costs or economists' concern about market inefficiency, but in its animating ideas and its institutional objectives. It is important to understand that these challenges were born, not of the older conservationist policies that many conservatives could support, but rather of the post-1970 variant of environmental policy that sought to democratize the policy process and supplant individualism and liberty with collectivism and planning. An effective response would require a conservative counterrevolution in the policy process that directly addressed the ideational and institutional bases of environmental policy. That response would flow from the confluence of three distinct streams of conservative thought: libertarianism, traditionalism, and anticommunism. This chapter discusses how the fusion of these distinct elements of postwar conservative thought formed the basis for a vigorous and visceral conservative reaction to environmentalist programs. It then turns to an appraisal of two landmark pieces of environmental legislation of the 1970s — the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) and the Clean Air Amendments Act of 1977 (CAAA) — both of which clearly illustrate the ideational and institutional challenges that environmental policy posed for conservatives.Less
Environmentalism, born in the milieu of activism and protest during the 1960s, aimed not only to save the ecosystem but also to open up administrative and policy processes to more democratic impulses that proved hostile to individualism, liberty, and property rights. For conservatives like Reagan, the fundamental challenge of environmental policy therefore lay not in business complaints about rising compliance costs or economists' concern about market inefficiency, but in its animating ideas and its institutional objectives. It is important to understand that these challenges were born, not of the older conservationist policies that many conservatives could support, but rather of the post-1970 variant of environmental policy that sought to democratize the policy process and supplant individualism and liberty with collectivism and planning. An effective response would require a conservative counterrevolution in the policy process that directly addressed the ideational and institutional bases of environmental policy. That response would flow from the confluence of three distinct streams of conservative thought: libertarianism, traditionalism, and anticommunism. This chapter discusses how the fusion of these distinct elements of postwar conservative thought formed the basis for a vigorous and visceral conservative reaction to environmentalist programs. It then turns to an appraisal of two landmark pieces of environmental legislation of the 1970s — the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) and the Clean Air Amendments Act of 1977 (CAAA) — both of which clearly illustrate the ideational and institutional challenges that environmental policy posed for conservatives.
Phillip Deery
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823253685
- eISBN:
- 9780823261246
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823253685.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Set against a backdrop of mounting anticommunism, Red Apple documents the personal, physical, and psychological effects of McCarthyism on six political activists with ties to New York City. From the ...
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Set against a backdrop of mounting anticommunism, Red Apple documents the personal, physical, and psychological effects of McCarthyism on six political activists with ties to New York City. From the late 1940s through the 1950s, McCarthyism disfigured the American political landscape. Under the altar of anticommunism, domestic Cold War crusaders undermined civil liberties, curtailed equality before the law, and tarnished the ideals of American democracy. In order to preserve freedom, they jettisoned some of its tenets. Congressional committees worked in tandem, although not necessarily in collusion, with the FBI, law firms, university administrations, publishing houses, television networks, movie studios, and a legion of government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to target “subversive” individuals. By examining real-life experiences at the “ground level,” Red Apple illuminates the human consequences of the widespread paranoia that gripped a nation. It explores how these six activists experienced, responded to, and suffered from one of the most savage assaults on civil liberties in American history. Their collective stories reveal the personal costs of holding dissident political beliefs in the face of intolerance and moral panic that is as relevant today as it was seventy years ago.Less
Set against a backdrop of mounting anticommunism, Red Apple documents the personal, physical, and psychological effects of McCarthyism on six political activists with ties to New York City. From the late 1940s through the 1950s, McCarthyism disfigured the American political landscape. Under the altar of anticommunism, domestic Cold War crusaders undermined civil liberties, curtailed equality before the law, and tarnished the ideals of American democracy. In order to preserve freedom, they jettisoned some of its tenets. Congressional committees worked in tandem, although not necessarily in collusion, with the FBI, law firms, university administrations, publishing houses, television networks, movie studios, and a legion of government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to target “subversive” individuals. By examining real-life experiences at the “ground level,” Red Apple illuminates the human consequences of the widespread paranoia that gripped a nation. It explores how these six activists experienced, responded to, and suffered from one of the most savage assaults on civil liberties in American history. Their collective stories reveal the personal costs of holding dissident political beliefs in the face of intolerance and moral panic that is as relevant today as it was seventy years ago.
