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3 books match the query 'Global Cold War'

cover of Media and the Global Cold War

Media and the Global Cold War

Edited by Rossen Djagalov and Arvind Rajagopal

University of Illinois Press, 2027

In the Cold War era, media became a central force in the shaping of political life, cultural exchange, and ideas of global order. A rivalry between political systems expanded into a worldwide struggle over who could shape information, control communication infrastructures, and define reality.

Arvind Rajagopal and Rossen Djagalov present essays on the uses of Cold War media. Focusing on the Global South, the contributors illuminate how postcolonial nations and others defied superpower pressure to use media for nation-building and international cooperation. At the same time, communication infrastructures linked global regions in unequal ways that often reinforced the power of the United States. Throughout, the essays show how Cold War media practices like secrecy, propaganda, and cultural diplomacy cemented patterns that still influence global communication systems and international politics today.

Cutting-edge and timely, Media and the Global Cold War reveals the workings of media beyond the superpower rivalry.
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cover of Neocolonial Fictions of the Global Cold War

Neocolonial Fictions of the Global Cold War

Steven Belletto and Joseph Keith

University of Iowa Press, 2019

Bringing together noted scholars in the fields of literary, cultural, gender, and race studies, this edited volume challenges us to reconsider our understanding of the Cold War, revealing it to be a global phenomenon rather than just a binary conflict between U.S. and Soviet forces. Shining a spotlight on writers from the war’s numerous fronts and applying lenses of race, gender, and decolonization, the essayists present several new angles from which to view the tense global showdown that lasted roughly a half-century. Ultimately, they reframe the Cold War not merely as a divide between the Soviet Union and the United States, but between nations rich and poor, and mostly white and mostly not. By emphasizing the global dimensions of the Cold War, this innovative collection reveals emergent forms of post-WWII empire that continue to shape our world today, thereby raising the question of whether the Cold War has ever fully ended.
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cover of Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War

Staging Growth

Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War

David C. Engerman

University of Massachusetts Press, 2003

Beginning in the 1950s, the theory of modernization emerged as the dominant paradigm of economic, social, and political development within the American foreign policy establishment. Purporting to explain the stages through which all nations pass on the road to industrial modernity, it provided a rationale for a broad range of cultural and political projects aimed at fostering Third World growth while simultaneously combating communism. 

But modernization theory was more than simply an expression of Cold War ideology. As the essays in this volume show, the ideal of modernization proliferated throughout the postcolonial world and across ideological lines in places as diverse as East Asia, Southern Africa, and South Asia. Indeed, it was embraced by all who shared the American enthusiasm for the increased production and higher standards of living promised by industrialization—enemies and allies alike. 

Situating modernization theory historically, Staging Growth avoids conventional chronologies and categories of analysis, particularly the traditional focus on conflicts between major powers. The contributors employ a variety of approaches—from economic and intellectual history to cultural criticism and biography—to shed fresh light on the global forces that shaped the Cold War and its legacies. Most of the pieces are comparative, exploring how different countries and cultures have grappled with the implications of modern development. At the same time, all of the essays address similar fundamental questions. Is modernization the same thing as Westernization? Is the idea of modernization universally valid? Do countries follow similar trajectories as they undertake development? Does modernization bring about globalization? 

In addition to the editors and Akira Iriye, contributors include Michael Adas, Laura Belmonte, Gregg Andrew Brazinsky, Christina Klein, J. Victor Koschmann, and Michael R. Mahoney.

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