Anti-Communism and Popular Culture in Mid-Century America

by Cyndy Hendershot

Overview

Not long after the Allied victories in Europe and Japan, America's attention turned from world war to cold war. The perceived threat of communism had a definite and significant impact on all levels of American popular culture, from government propaganda films like Red Nightmare in Time magazine to Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

This work examines representations of anti-communist sentiment in American popular culture from the early fifties through the mid-sixties. The discussion covers television programs, films, novels, journalism, maps, memoirs, and other works that presented anti-communist ideology to millions of Americans and influenced their thinking about these controversial issues. It also points out the different strands of anti-communist rhetoric, such as liberal and countersubversive ones, that dominated popular culture in different media, and tells a much more complicated story about producers' and consumers' ideas about communism through close study of the cultural artifacts of the Cold War.

Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786414406
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	01/02/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	183
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.37(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Cyndy Hendershot is an associate professor of English at Arkansas State University and the author of four books of literary criticism including McFarland’s Anti-Communism and Popular Culture in Mid-Century America (2003). She has published articles in Science-Fiction Studies, Mosaic, and Literature and Psychology and other journals.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments    
Introduction    

1 The Seduction of Communism    
2 Paranoiac Discourse and Anti–Communism    
3 Internal and External Communism in Popular Film    
4 The Individual Russian and the Communist System    
5 Anti–Communism and Ambivalence in Science Fiction    
6 Criminals and Communists in Fifties Popular Culture    
7 Anti–Communism and Movie Serials    
8 Cold War Parody    
9 Nuclear Apocalypse and Anti–Communism    
10 Cold War Confessions and the FBI Plant    
11 Anti–Communism and the Business World    
12 The Bear and the Dragon: Representations of Communism in Early 1960s American Culture 

Conclusion    
Notes    
Works Cited    
Index    

Editorial Reviews

easy to read...a valuable contribution...well organized...interesting...will give reader food for thought”—Utopian Studies.

From the Publisher

easy to read...a valuable contribution...well organized...interesting...will give reader food for thought

Utopian Studies